Thursday 7 20 17 morning call

Yesterday for me was a gorgeous day (despite clouds and rain) as I had three sessions literally all over the island. The video below was taken by a friend that saw me leaving the beach for a windfoiling training session. I call it training session, because I knew it wasn't going to be particularly fun as the wind looked blustery and low quality, but I want to try to foil as much as I can, in order to learn the skills that will allow me to move to surf foiling without too much struggle. I'm riding my Kai Gofoil and as you can see it still foils at much slower speed than a regular windsurfing foil would. That's why I consider the surfing foils the ideal "beginner windfoiling" foils.

Mid afternoon the windswell jumped up quite a bit and some windsurfers tackled the head high waves at Hookipa, but it honestly didn't look particularly epic.


So I chose to go surfing again and I found a spot that looked poor from the beach, but it was much better once I paddled out. Thanks to the magic 9.4 I had a couple of waves in the excellent range. Hookipa at sunset instead looked like a 2 to me.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore

W
2.2ft @ 12s from 136° (SE)

SW
3.5ft @ 12s from 95° (E)           

1.7ft @ 10s from 112° (ESE)

SE
3.4ft @ 12s from 127° (ESE)

Impossible to say how much energy we have on tap from the south, as the readings are influenced by the similar period energy coming from around 100 degrees from Fernanda. The webcams will be our only way to find out about size and conditions.

North shore
Pauwela
5ft @ 8s from 61° (ENE)                      

2ft @ 11s from 90° (E)

Hilo

5.7ft @ 8s from 78° (ENE)

2.9ft @ 12s from 103° (ESE)

Hilo records 3f 12s from 103 and that's what the Fernanda swell is at the moment. Pauwela only gets 2f from 90 degrees because it's partially shadowed and gets the refracted energy, but Hana should see the full 3f. The waves that picked up on the north shore yesterday were exclusively trades windswell, which had a remarkable bump up to 6f 8s in the middle of day (blue line in the graph below). Down a bit today, but still kinda pumping at 5f 8s from 61.

I put a red arrow to indicate the light green line that shows the longer period energy from Fernanda. Small stuff compared to the trades windswell.

Here's an interesting comment from Pat Caldwell's last discussion that confirms the impression I expressed in yesterday's call: "As has been the case before, the Wave Watch III biased high for the onset stage of the longest wave period energy that was due 7/18. As the wave intervals settle more near moderate wave periods, the model tends to do better."

And here's one of those gems that I absolutely love. I admit it: if uncle Pat was a rock singer, I'd be a roadie. In the tropical eastern north Pacific, tropical cyclone Greg has formed and could bring easterly exposures a Hana hou to the Fernanda gig mid to late next week.

Here's the latest predicted path of Fernanda.


And here's Caldwell's table for Oahu (in this case it will apply with no differences to Maui). Good size short/medium period energy, but pretty bad wind direction.


Wind map at noon.


North shore keeps showing only the windswell fetch.


South Pacific shows a fetch in the Tasman Sea.


More clouds on top of us, but I like how the upwind sky looks like. Maybe we'll get some sunshine before the storm (which is not in the picture yet).