Thursday 6 1 17 morning call

Another beautiful day of surfing on the south shore, unfortunately the strong trades created some wind on that side too and the swell was definitely smaller/weaker than the previous days, but still some fun to be had.

A month ago, a blog reader paid for a surf lesson as a gift for a Maui friend. I contacted the student and he said:"I'd like to have waist to chest high, clean and uncrowded conditions". We had to wait a month, but we got exactly that.


If you have a friend in Maui, a surf lesson is a great idea for a present. The last 30 minutes I took videos from the beach and that, together with the gopro clips, provided the necessary visual evidence for at least three major areas of improvement, the most important of which was the feet position (legs too close to each other). I gave him a home exercise that should take care of that.

You guys can practice too (and I should too!), here's what I wrote to him:

Place yourself in front of a mirror, draw a line on the floor, pretend you're paddling and 
pop- up as quick and gentle as possible. He's a (long!) video that shows 
how to do that at home (you don't really need surfboard for it): 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHxLX1M7v2Q

3am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
2ft @ 13s from 140° (SE)

SW
2.4ft @ 13s from 157° (SSE)

SE
1.1ft @ 17s from 160° (SSE)

The trades are back as is the easterly windswell and that made the readings at the outer buoys turn a bit more east. See what I mean about the direction at the buoys being influenced by the other swells in the water? Still a lovely couple of feet at 13s in the water for this very long lasting swell and the SE buoy even records some 17s energy that should be that rebound I mentioned exactly a week ago when I saw the fetch pointing towards us again. In other words, there should still be waves on the south shore. Stay tuned for a possible early beach report and check the webcams as usual.

North shore
NW001
2.9ft @ 9s from 353° (N)

Waimea
2.1ft @ 9s from 345° (NNW)

Pauwela
3.9ft @ 8s from 57° (ENE)           

3.5ft @ 6s from 78° (ENE)

 

NW energy declined greatly in the last 24 hours with periods already down to 8-9s. I believe Pauwela's readings are heavely influenced by the easterly windswell and the 8s energy is from a much more northerly direction instead, but that doesn't change the fact that is only 8s. At least the period is recorded correctly. Together with a strong easterly trades forecast (sensor at Hookipa reading 9(4-19)mph from 94), that should make for poor quality waves on the north shore and I might have to drive to Lahaina again to catch a few (hopefully clean) waves before work.

 

I'm trying to figure out what times are more useful for you guys, here's the wind map for 8am that shows moderate trades already.

Much stronger trades at 2pm. Yesterday I drove towards Hookipa at 5.30pm to check out a possible windsurfing session. When I saw that it was still super windy (gusts up to 30 knots), I turned around at Lanes and gave up on the idea.


If it wasn't for a bit of easterly windswell fetch, there would be pretty much no wave generation for us in the North Pacific today.


A little better situation in the South Pacific, but not by much. Most of that Tasman Sea energy will be blocked, that fetch east of New Zealand is only 20 knots (not enough), the only decent one is that SE fetch, but that might be blocked by Big Island.


No clouds in the sky and another stunning day is on its way.