A shortboard session for me yesterday. The early morning saw some excellent conditions before the wind picked up enough to ruin the perfection. Here's some photos I took after my session. Looks like Annie.
Pat Fukuda was ripping as usual on his longboard.
Unfortunately both shots I got of him are washed out, but look at that wave.
All the way around.
Kain Daly (I think).
Enjoying the view.
He set up the top turn in the pocket perfectly with this nice bottom turn, but had to give up because of the other surfer in the way.
I caught a giant fly that landed on the head of this semi-bold guy... just kidding, that's my hairy knee. The small black spot is an ant and both were my spiritual teachers for a while.
Here's a couple of gopro shots from my session. I forgot to set the angle to the widest setting.
This is a non particularly impressive wave. Watch it if you got nothing better to do, otherwise skip it.
4am significant buoy readings
North shore
NW000
19.4ft @ 19s from 308° (WNW)
Hanalei
9.9ft @ 20s from 317° (NW)
9.8ft @ 15s from 323° (NW)
Waimea
8.2ft @ 17s from 325° (NW)
4.8ft @ 13s from 320° (NW)
3.8ft @ 22s from 321° (NW)
Pauwela
7.2ft @ 17s from 325° (NW)
5.8ft @ 14s from 322° (NW)
3.6ft @ 11s from 3° (N)
2.5ft @ 22s from 330° (NW)
Almost 20f at 19s at the NW000 buoy, that doesn't happen often... this swell really is giant. Below is the collage of the report buoys graphs, together with the Surfline forecast. The NW000 buoy seems to have peaked around 3am at around 19-20f 18-19s. IF that is true (could go even higher in the next few hours), by applying GP's rule of thumb, 19s take 13 hours to get here, so we should expect the same to happen in Maui around 4pm. That is reflected on the red dotted line I drew on Pauwela's graph, prolonging the 22s light green line that has just appeared on it. Notice how this swell had a first pulse at 14s (the one I surfed in the early morning), then a 17s one and now the big 20s stuff. That reflects the complex interaction between the fetches that have built seas upon existing seas.
The Jaws contest's men heat draw is below (taken from this page). The toughest heat of Round 1 seems to be n.4, imo. The official call will be made at 7am. With a much stronger wind forecast for tomorrow, I think they'll try to finish today. They need to run 8 heats and 2 finals. If the heats will be 45 minutes and the finals 1 hour each, they need 8 full hours. That means they have to start at 9am to finish at 5pm. If the qualifying heats are going to be longer, they need even more time. Are the waves going to be big enough in the early morning? We'll find out. The other option is that they wait for the afternoon to start and finish the event tomorrow morning, with a stronger wind (and a higher production cost).
Many are wondering if they allow to go down and watch from the cliff. Here's what I heard: The usual acces (the one in front of Peahi Rd) is in such bad shape that not even a 4x4 could make it. So they're using the access on Oili Rd and that one will be blocked (need a press pass). So maybe it will be possible to just walk down the usual access, but if it's in that bad of a shape and with the rain that is gracing the north shore as I type, even that might be challenging (and very muddy). I recommend to stay home and watch it online. That's what I'm going to do, after having found a spot for a early morning sesh of some sort, as usual. And let's not forget the contest at Honolua and the one at Sunset Beach (this last one will be too big, imo).
South shore
1.2ft @ 11s from 212° (SW)
Lanai still feels a sliver of SW energy. Yesterday I heard it was knee high on the Lahaina side, probably flat to calf high today.
The big gyre still has a large fetch oriented towards, but the winds are relatively weak. The strong stuff in now oriented towards the US west coast. The new low forming off Japan will be responsible for the next NW swell.
South Pacific has a small S fetch (the one in the Tasman Sea will get blocked).
Morning sky.
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