5 24 16 morning call

I had the whole day yesterday and yet the only session I found was able to find was the SUP lesson I taught on the south shore. This is my student catching his first successful wave of his life (and screaming the whole way for happiness). His natural low stance helped, the paddle is too high up in the air, but pretty damn good overall!


I got on the Hana hwy later directed to Koki, but had to take a nap halfway and drove back after it.
Pavils looked fun late afternoon, but with at least 30 people.



3-4am significant buoy readings

Pauwela 4.7ft @ 8s from 61° (ENE)

Lanai 1.6ft @ 14s from 194° (SSW)

Barbers 2ft @ 14s from 203° (SSW)


This early morning the wind should be fairly light on the whole north shore, before it manages to make the turn around Pauwela point, so surfing the windswell (better on a east facing break, but watch out for the man-o-wars) is an option.
I think I'll go for the longer period/longer wait south swell instead.
Below is the map of 7 days ago (May 17) and it looks pretty good.


Below is the graph of the Samoa buoy this morning. As you can see, it's feeling the Fiji swell and yesterday it went from 2 to 6 feet in 12 hours. Not a huge reading by any means, and it seems to have peaked already... where do those 16f 16s go?! But it's some energy that should arrive in Maui in 3 days, which is Thursday (just 1f 20s forecasted from Surfline though).


Here's a brief paragraph (which I'm gonna include in the usual NW buoy to Maui travel time and shadowing angles post for easy future reference) about travelling times from Samoa and swell directions.

The Samoa buoy (S on the map, F stands for Fiji instead) is located at 14.265 S 170.494 W which is at an angle of 202 degrees SSW of Maui and at a distance of 2,222 nm. Below are the travelling times of swells coming from that direction.

20sec--30kts-- 74hrs (3days)

17sec--26kts-- 85hrs (3.5 days)

14sec--21kts--106 hrs (4.5 days)

11sec--17kts--130 hrs (5.5 days)

As you can see, there's a narrow path between the New Zealand's north island and Fiji that is unobstructed. The direction of that path is 210. There's also more scattered paths west of Fiji. You can understand how the energy of a swell coming from the Tasman sea will always be reduced by the interaction with all this land masses.
As a matter of fact, the biggest south swells for Hawaii, usually come from just east of New Zealand, an area which is between 200 and 180 degrees south of us. No obstacles there and easier to forecast too.



Noon wind map shows pretty offshore direction.



North Pacific shows sign of life on today's map. In addition to the usual windswell fetch and the NNW weak one that was there already yesterday, we now have a distant proper NW fetch. Should get better the next few days and Surfline calls for 3f 12s from 318 on Monday.


South Pacific still shows strong activity in the Tasman sea. That's another big swell for Fiji. Let's hope it doesn't go flat when the contest will be there!



WSL has acquired Kelly's wave. Here's a nice article in which I especially enjoyed the Kelly's interview part.

More photos from the epic Cloudbreak swell  here  and here.

Last but not least, here's a video of shaper Keith Taboul and his riders. The 5.10 KT I'm selling was shaped for Kain Daly. Check out how good he is.

KT SURFBOARDS from TAKE SHELTER PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.