Tuesday 1 30 18 morning call

Just a shortboard session for me yesterday, as I was busy packing as many work engagements as possible and free myself up before the very exciting stretch of excellent surf we're headed to.

Photo of the day goes to Austin Kalama who managed to get barreled on a foil SUP board (!) at Sebastian Inlet (FL). Photo from the Gofoil page. Why would he try to get barreled on a foil? Because he can.



4-5am significant buoy readings
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for declining 0.9f 12s.

North shore
NW101
7.6ft @ 13s from 320° (NW)

Waimea
7.2ft @ 13s from 359° (N)

Pauwela

6.7ft @ 14s from 359° (N)

4.9ft @ 10s from 70° (ENE)

New northerly pulse is up at the buoys. Below is the collage of the three reported ones together with the Surfline forecast. As you can see, it seems that the swell has arrived well before the prediction. If it wasn't for the 5f 10s of easterly swell still in the water, I would call the conditions at Hookipa a 10 from home.


Let's have a look at that "very exciting stretch of excellent surf we're headed to" I mentioned above. First, below is the collage of the fetches of the last four days: Jan 26,27,28 and 29. The northerly fetch will be the main source of energy today and tomorrow, before the NW fetch on the 29 and 30 maps will send us a bigger NW swell on Thursday and after that an even bigger swell (possibly extra large) will arrive in the weekend.


But that has very little to do with my claim. What will make the conditions excellent is, as usual, the wind. Below is the Windguru wind prediction for the rest of the week, and that is the best surf forecast you can imagine for Maui's north shore (even though I made sure to pick a model that doesn't show any information about the waves).


Well, that is if those wind speeds would be confirmed. Reality is that Maui's two big mountains love to squeeze the air molecules and accelerate them. This is the wind map at noon and that Kona wind seems way too strong to still be ideal for surfing (might even be enough for windsurfing). Fortunately in the earlier hours the wind should be much lighter. We'll see, it's totally quiet at the moment at 6am, don't wait too long is my recommendation.


North Pacific shows a close by NW fetch. For the first time in like 2 weeks, there's no easterly fetch. The medium period easterly swell has been unusually long lasting, also because for the last few days it was not accompanied by the local trades.


Nothing of relevance in the South Pacific.


Morning sky.