Tuesday 2 26 19 morning call

I'm back after a short and very last minute trip to the Big Island. Took me 18 years to put foot on that beautiful land. Let's see how long it will take for Lanai.


Doesn't happen often to have a commercial airplane all by yourself.

The reefs of North Kihei look pretty awesome from above. Too bad they don't get swells very often.

And that's because of the relatively narrow opening between Makena and Kahoolawe which, as reported in the post Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines, is 165 to 185. Pretty cool to watch it from above. I wished there was a swell to see how long the shadow cone created by Molokini would be.

 

 Human colonization.

The teacher comes in.

I even went on a "touristy" boat trip. Got plenty photos of whales...

...but none of them looked as good as this one that I took at Hookipa.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
Lanai
1.4ft @ 14s from 206° (SSW)

Small SSW energy at Lanai should make for another non-flat day on the south shore.

North shore
NW001
5ft @ 12s from 339° (NNW)

4.6ft @ 9s from 4° (N)

1.1ft @ 20s from 340° (NNW)

 

Hanalei

5.5ft @ 13s from 315° (NW)

4.6ft @ 9s from 342° (NNW)

4.3ft @ 11s from 320° (NW)

0.2ft @ 25s from 305° (WNW)

 

Waimea

5.5ft @ 10s from 337° (NNW)

5.2ft @ 13s from 319° (NW)                        

0.2ft @ 25s from 312° (NW)

 

Pauwela

4.4ft @ 9s from 347° (NNW)

3.5ft @ 13s from 317° (NW)

3.1ft @ 11s from 327° (NW)

 

One of the reasons why I went to the Big Island was the lack of waves in Maui. Not anymore, plenty and mixed NW energy on tap now for the whole week, unfortunately with unfavorable winds at times. As usual, we'll stay focused on the present and notice that this first medium (size and period) NW swell buoy peaked around noon at the NW buoy yesterday. At 12s that means 20h of travel, so expect a corresponding peak in the local waters around 8am. Below is the graphs of NW, Waimea and Pauwla together with the Surfline forecast, which for today suggest an optimistic 6ft 11s. Whatever it'll be, today it's just a warm up day, the real big stuff is tomorrow and Thursday. 

 

Not much too really get excited about though. The number of different period readings at all the buoys suggests a non particularly clean breaking pattern. In addition to that, tomorrow there will be the very long period energy, and the short period N energy generated by the nearby fetch depicted in the fetches map below. With the addition of the onshore winds (predicted to gradually increase), the conditions will look pretty stormy, unless you manage to find a sheltered spot.

Best time to surf this whole three days stretch, imo, is this morning at dawn. I'm running a little late, but I'll try to report from Hookipa before 7.30am.

 

 

Wind map at noon. Should stay relatively calm until 10-11am.

 

North Pacific only has a nearby northerly fetch.

 

South Pacific has a fetch in the Tasman Sea.

Morning sky.