Saturday 6 3 17 morning call

The only reason I'm not gonna call yesterday "another gorgeous day of surfing on the south shore", is the presence of an annoying lump in the water on which I will elaborate later on this call. Some spots were less effected and it doesn't really show well in the pictures, but it was everywhere.
As you can see there were still some good belly high ones. This was day 8 of the swell, not too shabby and not gone yet.


I couldn't figure out what the heck the thing in the background was. It looked like two towers in the water with a weird ship behind, but it was instead a dry dock, something I ignored the existence of.
BTW, a very warm welcome back to the surfer on the wave, who went through some tough times.


Female beauty. Yeah, I'm still sensitive to it.


Hi-Tech organized a keiki contest that will be held today at Launiupoko. The boss gave me some impressive numbers that I'm happy to share: total number of kids (max age: 12) that signed up: 170! (that means no beach entries today). Number of under 6yo in the shortboard category: 40!!! No wonder they're all gonna be ripping in a few years.

One thing for sure: surfing has a bright future in Maui. Acutally surfing has a bright future all over the world, IMO. That's why I say "don't complain about the crowds today, because in 10 years these'll be the good old days..."|
Anyway, first heat starts at 7am and, unless you have a kid in the contest, I would strongly recommend to go surfing somewhere else, since the parking is going to be extremely challenging there.


Wonk in the Lahaina waters, I was saying. It was obviously a short period wonk and I thought about three possible explanations:
1) a local squall or weather disturbance during the night (I gave this less than 5% chance to be honest, but it does happen occasionally)
2) windswell coming from the southern hemisphere trades
3) windswell coming from our local trades.

Considering how easterly our trades have been and that the related windswell is coming from a direction around 100, I tend to believe that the n.3 is the cause. So I went on Google Earth and drew a line from that direction. As you can see, in order to get all the way to Lahaina, the windswell has to around 40 degrees of refraction around La Perouse. Can 6-7f 8s do that? I'll try to find out today.
Normally the windswell comes from a direction between 70 and 90 and in that case, it will just crash head on into Kahoolawe. That's why I believe this is a special case (thank god!), due to the 100 degrees direction.


5am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
2.3ft @ 14s from 121° (ESE)

SW
2.9ft @ 14s from 161° (SSE)

SE
2.3ft @ 14s from 147° (SE)

Still energy from the south (direction indication completely useless because heavily influenced by the strong windswell in the water at the same time), there should be waves in Lahaina again. Check the webcam before you hit the road, because we're probably talking the usual waist high stuff, like the set I caught below (which was chest high at the take off). I got a nose rider longboard in the car this morning, just in case.


North shore
Pauwela
4.5ft @ 6s from 62° (ENE)

4.4ft @ 8s from 86° (E)

Only windswell at the local buoy, expect Hookipa to be around waist to occasional chest high and blown out with a sensor reading of 13(5-19)mph from the east at 5.30am.



Wind map at 8am


Wind map at 2pm. Another strong trades day.


North Pacific map shows a small and weak NW fetch and the windswell one.



South Pacific map shows a small patch of decent strength winds, but overall next week keeps looking pretty grim, both north and south.


Those high clouds are moving in the opposite direction of the trades. They like to do that.
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