Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Wednesday 2 28 18 morning call

Double shortboard session for me yesterday. I like taking surfing photos, I like it even more when there's all friends in the lineup. Mark gets the shot of the day with a radical top turn.


The strong easterly wind is making for some radical downwind action too. This is a photo showing lonely Ryan Funk on a foiling downwinder. I had one foiling session with him and the kid is incredibly talented. Instead I am not good enough for that just yet, so I'll stick to the surfing until summer time when I'll have more chances to practice.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore

No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 0.6f 12s.

North shore
Hilo
12.5ft @ 11s from 83° (E)

Pauwela
9.0ft @ 11s from 85° (E)
7.5ft @ 8s from 76° (ENE)
5.5ft @ 9s from 76° (ENE)

The Surfline algorithm to divide the energies hitting a buoy in different period swells is doing a great job at Pauwela, but the significant wave height ( the average of the highest one-third of all of the wave heights during the 20-minute sampling period, black line in the graph) is about 12 feet also locally, like in Hilo.

In other words, big rough waves from the east also today.


Wind map at noon shows once again strong easterly winds.


North Pacific has a decent NW fetch (stronger and better oriented than yesterday) plus the usual E one. Unfortunately that low is moving north, so today should be its last day of wave generation for us. Only 2.7f 14s predicted by Surfline out of it for Sunday.


South Pacific doesn't offer any fetches of relevance.


Morning sky.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Tuesday 2 27 18 morning call

Just a longboard session for me yesterday morning, after a long search for suitable waves, I lucked out in a hour of no wind at an exposed spot. No photos of the day, here's an image from Ben Thouard.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore

No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 0.5f 12s and that's what it looked like yesterday (see beach report I posted). Probably similar today in the knee high range.

North shore
Pauwela
9.5ft @ 11s from 85° (E)           
5.1ft @ 5s from 84° (E)

Plenty but only energy from the east and that's gonna be the case the whole week until Sunday.

Wind map at noon shows strong easterly trades.


North Pacific shows a NW fetch oriented towards the Marshalls of which we can only hope to get the angular spreading. That low is not going to move towards us and move north instead, as it's blocked by the very strong high pressure that is generating the current strong easterly trades.


South Pacific shows a couple of very small fetches. Next south pulse of some relevance will be Sat through Mon with 1.5f 14s.


Morning sky.

Monday, February 26, 2018

7.15am lahaina side is knee to thigh high weak and crumbling. I saw some white water in the dark at Hookipa, but it was very windy.

Monday 2 26 18 morning call

Double shortboard session for me yesterday, here's a nice closeout wall.


Possibly the first (and last) time you guys see this angle. When I found out I had the camera shooting backwards in the mouth mount I started laughing by myself in the lineup... too bad, I had a wet cover-up on this one. I swear I shaved before going to work later on.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
6ft @ 9s from 86° (E)                      
2ft @ 12s from 114° (ESE)
 
Those 2f 12s at the W buoy could be the energy from the south. The direction as usual is not reliable as the buoy is hit by another stronger swell from the E. This is a photo of Thousand Peaks from a friend (thanks!) yesterday. Waist high, occasionally higher is the report I got.


North shore
Pauwela
8.2ft @ 10s from 94° (E)
4.9ft @ 7s from 84° (E)

Only energy from the east at the Pauwela buoy. 8f 10s obviously make bigger waves than 5f 7s, but that component is from 94, the second is from 84, so it depends where the break of your interested is located.

Wind map at noon shows strong easterly trades.

North Pacific only has the usual E fetch.


South Pacific shows a couple of fetches.


Morning sky.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Sunday 2 25 18 morning call

Just a shortboard session for me yesterday, but a very fun one. No shots of the day, but 17 SUP foiling photos from a recent session with some technical comments on it. If you're here just for the call, scroll down a lot.

Way too much work to arrange the photos in a meaningful order, I'll stick with the chronological one.
 
 
Jason Hall is a much better surfer and foiler than me. He doesn't use straps and has a great style. Straps have advantages (see later), but they do constrict you in a fixed feet position. Lovely upper body twist here for an aggressive cutback.

All style on this one instead. He's goofy like me and he seems to like the paddle on the back side. Trying to caress or touch the water on the inside of a cut back is always a good idea. Ask Tom Curren.


In this front side cut back, without switching hands on the paddle, he moved it to the inside of the turn again to achieve the same shoulder twist.


I like to have the paddle on my front side instead. That's the side I use 99% of the times I paddle for a wave, often switching to it only for the very last stroke if the desired angle of the board requires me to do so. I'm just stronger and more balanced on that side. It doesn't help the shoulders twist in the backside cutbacks though, if I keep it there.


This mini sequence illustrates one of the advantages of the footstraps, particularly the back one in this case. Pumping a foil board is very similar to jumping up and down, with a slight delay between the timing of the two feet.
Something like: front up - back up / front down- back down. Here I'm pulling the back foot up against the strap and that helps greatly to lift the whole tail of the board.

Here I'm about to start loading up the front foot.
Other advantages of the front foot strap are:
1) a nice sensation of a solid connection to the board
2) it can be used to leverage against it also in the cutbacks

If you ask around instead (as I did, before deciding nonetheless to add some stick on inserts to give it a try), most people will tell you "so I'm sure the foot is in the right position". That doesn't make any sense to me, as there is no right position. The biggest advantage of not having a strap is that you can move your foot according to what the ride and the wave demands.

I installed it like two weeks ago and I'm gonna use it till the end of February and then try again with no back foot strap. I have a feeling I'll miss it and put it right back on, but I'll let you guys know. Too bad that won't mean anything, as it's a very personal choice.

Jason's first attempt to the air chair. Flash and Austin are the best ones I've seen at this peculiar way of foiling. I've never tried and I'm honestly scared about it.

This one illustrates the leash system. My board is 6.6 and I'm 5.9 and I can get away with an 8 feet leash. 9 or 10 would work better for bigger boards/riders. Not ideal for novices, as you wipeout more often, but still better, IMO, than those coil leashes. The estimated amount of time I take to tack it back in the shorts after I wipe out and I get back on the boards on my knees, is less than a second. I do it even in front of approaching white water in the middle of a set.

Looking cool wasn't my first priority on this relatively big drop. Keeping the nose down was. And that was a good idea, as I managed to control it and enjoy a very long glide. Underfoiling better than overfoiling.
 

Same wave. I just like the water in this one.

A different perspective. Thanks to my visiting friend Gianfranco for all the great shots.

I remember this one, as I thought I was going down for sure. Instead a miracle happened and I managed not to overflow and to somehow continue the ride. I think the paddle touching the water helped (I'm not leaning on it though, my weight is still centered in the middle). If anything, at least it made me crouch down and keep a low stance.


Didn't do as good here. The moment the foil breaks the surface of the water, it looses all its lift and the nose of the board crashes back to the water surface.


I'm pretty sure I'll end buckling my board at one point (it wasn't build for that), but at least the Gofoil (current) mast is only two feet long, so you don't crash as hard as if it was longer. The other advantage is that you only need two feet of depth. The main advantage of a longer mast would be more play before overfoiling. On the other hand, when you do overfoil, you crash from a higher height and you will touch the bottom more often in shallow waters.

It's always a treat to end a session with a very long one, aiming for the dock.

I'll end with a quote from the best book I've ever read: "The untethered soul" by Michael Singer. I've read it 4-5 times and I keep learning something every time.
Consciousness has the ability to do what is called "focus". It is part of the nature of consciousness. The essence of consciousness is awareness and awareness has the ability to become more aware of one thing and less aware of something else. In other words, it has the ability to focus itself on certain objects.

Right now, all I'm aware of is the water in front of me. The incessant chatter of the voice of the mind inside all humans' head is temporarily silent and that is what for me is bliss. That happens in any form of wave riding, but somehow it's enhanced by the lack of water noise while foiling.



4am significant buoy readings
South shore

No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 0.8f 15f. There were waves in the waist to occasionally shoulder high on the Lahaina side already yesterday.

North shore
Pauwela
9.1ft @ 10s from 87° (E)

East swell still pumping, but with a slight turn more to the east.

Wind map at noon.

North Pacific shows a couple of small NW fetches and the usual E one.


South Pacific shows a nice fetch partially blocked by New Zealand. Next weekend's south swell swell could be bigger than the actual one.

 
 
Morning sky. 
 

Saturday, February 24, 2018

7am Hookipa has head high windswell peaks with some wind on it.
3.5

Saturday 2 24 18 morning call

Just a SUP foiling session for me yesterday as the strong wind in the afternoon didn't allow me to find inspiring conditions of any kind anywhere. But I took a bunch of shots of other less picky individuals and here's the gallery, starting for the morning bliss.


Mid morning Kain Daly found this windy peak to practice rotations.


Three shots from the Hookipa windsurfing action.






A bit of female beautiful forms.


Kai Penny had fun tow foiling.


Sunset was delightful.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore

No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast confirms that, but Pat Caldwell has something else to say:
A storm-force low pressure system SE of Tasmania 2/16-17 is predicted to make small surf for Hawaii over the weekend 2/23-24. The PacIOOS Pearl Harbor Entrance buoy 2/23 shows a slither of 18-22s wave energy. These are the forerunners. The event should be filled in on Saturday and drop Sunday.

Surfline only shows this low swell starting tomorrow.

I tend to agree with Pat Caldwell, as the fetch started eight days ago on the 16. Below is the collage of the maps of Feb 16,17 and 18. If the swell is here, expect extremely inconsistent arrival of sets.


North shore
9.1ft @ 9s from 71° (ENE)
3.3ft @ 13s from 334° (NNW)

The NW energy is on its way down and should be barely noticeable today, as the dominant energy will come from the elevated easterly swell.

Wind map at noon shows strong sideoff trades at Hookipa barely reaching down the coast.

North Pacific shows a small NW fetch and the usual E one.


South Pacific shows yesterday's fetch still oriented towards South America but with still a small section oriented towards us.


Morning sky.