Monday 8 18 19 morning call

Last call for a while, as I leave today for a trip. Bad timing, I know, as I'm going to miss the big swell of the next few days, but this time I had family/friends time constraints and wasn't completely free to choose when to leave. Going to Europe first and then from there eventually I'll decide if I want to go and surf somewhere. No idea when I'll be back, might be a month or so.

I leave you with brother Eric, here's the funding campaign page for his new wheelchair.
Eric Walls / Ocean Connected from MAUI MEDIA CARTEL on Vimeo.


Since I'm leaving, I'm going to try to put a little extra content than usual in this post. This is obviously Kai Lenny doing his things. I had my session n.4 on a wing yesterday (once again, thanks to HST, the school where you want to go for a lesson of such thing). For the first time I used my 5.8 Kalama SUP foil board with footstraps and the improvement in the fun was remarkable (before I used my tuttle box retrofitted bigger and heavier 7.4 Starboard POD). Real easy to bring up on the foil with your feet in the straps, but I could only do that on the way out (goofy stance). Once it was time to jibe, I had the opportunity to try to learn a completely new skill for me. I'm not a snowboarder, skateboarder,  kiteboarder or freestyle windsurfer, so I have never ridden anything in "toe side stance". I was doing the jibe no problem, switching my hands on the boom of the Duotone wing, leaving my feet in the straps, but then that position of twisted body was just too awkward to allow me keep foiling. Nothing I can't learn, but it'll take a few sessions.


Before the wing thing, in the morning I SUP foiled some amazingly good waves on the Lahaina side. The west swell was hitting beautifully and Guardrails had some chest to head high inconsistent very clean sets. My finger reacted badly to the double gripping session (paddle and wing), but now it's going to rest for a while, so that's ok. Need to do that surgery as soon as I come back, so that I can be back to freely trying everything I feel like doing.
Like foil downwinders, for example. This is a shot from Gofoil taken in Hood River.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Barbers
1.9ft @ 13s from 224° (SW)

1.7ft @ 10s from 180° (S)                        

0.2ft @ 22s from 188° (S)

Lanai
2.8ft @ 13s from 238° (WSW)

Hanalei
2.2ft @ 12s from 281° (WNW)

West swell still at almost 3ft 13s at Lanai (which is where we care the most) while declining a bit more at the other buoys. Notice the sliver of 22s southerly energy at Barbers, which will not be visible in the water this morning (maybe at sunset), but it's the forerunning very long period energy of tomorrow's big swell. You guys enjoy. Meanwhile, I'll still go to Lahaina this morning and catch some waves like this westerly beauty at the harbor. Check the webcam yourself.


North shore
Mokapu
3ft @ 9s from 86° (E)

Hookipa flat to tiny, slightly bigger on eastern exposures.

Wind map at noon.


Not much in the North Pacific.


South Pacific has a fetch in the Tasman Sea.


Morning sky.

Sunday 8 18 19 morning call

Beautiful small waves yesterday on the Lahaina side, I had a delightful foiling session. Haven't seen many photos of the Ole contest yet, this one was taken by 1more808.


Much bigger waves are one our way, this is Teahoopu yesterday, too big to run the trials of the WSL contest starting the 21st. If they run it today, there should be a live streaming (most likely in French) on this FB page Polynesie la 1ere.


Here's an incredibly steep non jet-ski assisted drop.


This is a very solid swell. The Samoa buoy went up to almost 10ft 18s yesterday morning, Tuesday/Wednesday the south shores will be remarkably big.


5am significant buoy readings
South shore
Barbers
2.2ft @ 13s from 234° (WSW)
1ft @ 10s from 175° (S)

Lanai
2.8ft @ 13s from 242° (WSW)

Hanalei
2.7ft @ 12s from 279° (W)

West swell continues to decrease in period, but it's definitely not over yet. Until a couple of days ago there were two swells (W and S) in the water of similar period and it was hard to tell which one was which. Now there's only the west one and this image of this set at the Breakwall is a confirmation that a straight west swell does get to Lahaina (by wrapping around Lanai). Webcam looks pretty good, check it out yourself.


North shore
Mokapu
3.4ft @ 7s from 84° (E)

3.1ft @ 9s from 88° (E)

Marginal windswell, Hookipa flat to tiny, bigger on the eastern exposure.

Wind map at noon.


North Pacific has a few weak fetches.


South Pacific has a weak S fetch.


Morning sky.

Saturday 8 17 19 morning call

Didn't have time to drive south yesterday morning, so I surfed Hookipa, which was a 1.5. Here's Deneb trying unsuccessfully to make something out of virtually nothing. A bit of exercise, that's what it was.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Barbers
2.2ft @ 13s from 250° (WSW)

1.9ft @ 9s from 171° (S)                        

1ft @ 11s from 203° (SSW)

 

Lanai

2.5ft @ 14s from 269° (W)

2.2ft @ 8s from 169° (SSE)

 

Hanalei

2.4ft @ 13s from 278° (W)

 

West swell still in the water but smaller than the past few days. Background south energy down to a minimum. Today it will be a small day everywhere, it's a good thing that the Ole at Launiupoko is a longboard contest...

 

North shore

Mokapu

3.8ft @ 7s from 87° (E)

3.5ft @ 8s from 95° (E)

 

Hilo

5.9ft @ 8s from 96° (E)

 

Windswell trending up a bit, Hookipa might have tiny windy waves, bigger on eastern exposures.

 

Wind map at noon.

 

North Pacific only has the windswell fetch.

 

Nice but fairly weak S fetch in the South Pacific.

 

Morning sky.

Friday 8 16 19 morning call

Beautiful waves on the south shore yesterday, no time to take photos, here's Philippe Carneri of Horue doing some winGfoiling freestyle.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Barbers
2.9ft @ 9s from 170° (S)

2.2ft @ 13s from 246° (WSW)                        

0.9ft @ 11s from 188° (S)

Lanai
2.3ft @ 9s from 169° (SSE)

2.2ft @ 14s from 266° (W)

1.7ft @ 11s from 216° (SW)            

 

Hanalei

2.6ft @ 13s from 272° (W)

 

Today the leftover south is down to 11s and the two local south facing buoys can more easily distinguish it from the 13-14s westerly energy. Hanalei instead continues to feel only the west undisturbed, so we'll take that as a reference and it seems to be smaller than the last couple of days. Observation of the Kihei cams confirms so, but it's far from flat. Lahaina instead has early morning onshores, due, IMO, to the relatively strong trades already blowing on the north shore.
I got a snapshot of both below, for once Kihei beats Lahaina both in quantity and quality of the surf!

 

In case you didn't check the post Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines, here's an abstract from it that shows how westerly energy (if big and long period enough) can actually get anywhere on the Lahaina side.

 

That's good news for the Hi-Tech organized Ole longboard contest at Launiupoko tomorrow. It won't be big, but it won't be flat either.

 

 

 

Wind map at noon.

 

North Pacific has a small fetch in the NW corner and the windswell one.

 

South Pacific has a small S fetch.

 

Morning sky.

 

 

 

Thursday 8 15 19 morning call

Fun size on the Lahaina side yesterday, here's the VLOG of the day.


3am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore

Unfortunately the Surfline page where I read the buoy readings is not available this morning (link n.11), so here's Pat Caldwell's words: Mid Wednesday on southern shores has a combo of the Krosa swell aforementioned, and a declining New Zealand event. The former should stay about the same on Thursday with the latter dropping.

The NOAA page for Hanalei reads

2.6

14.3

W

and this might be a rare case in which that's exactly what's in the water, since, as uncle Pat adds confirming what I wrote yesterday: The PacIOOS/CDIP nearshore buoys off Hanalei, Kauai 8/14 give the best sampling since it does not receive the overlapping south swell

That's it, without buoys it's hard to do an evaluation, but fortunately there's webcams in Lahaina and Kihei, so you guys check both and decide.

North shore should be flat to tiny.

Wind map at noon.


Also Krosa made landfall, so no more waves from those guys. But there's a bit of a fetch in the NW corner of winter memories...


The strong fetch that made next week's swell is now aiming at the Americas, not much else behind it.


Morning sky.

Wednesday 8 14 19 morning call

An animated debate is happening between my coworker Mauricio and I: provided a south swell is big enough to lit up most island spots, is it better to seek big and challenging waves or smaller clean perfection in Lahaina? Yesterday I went to "his" spot, today he's coming to "mine".


Not much room to screw up, as the rocks are dangerously close.


Conditions were a 5, so after that first session, I felt like driving to Lahaina anyway and took this one on the way.


Here we go, much safer and way more fun for me. Plus, there's much more variety and options: at least 7 different breaks (two of which you can go left or right from the same takeoff spot) in what I call "the two miles miracle".


3am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Hanalei
2.7ft @ 14s from 278° (W)

Barbers
3.4ft @ 14s from 229° (SW)

Lanai
3.1ft @ 13s from 217° (SW)

Below is the map of the Hawaii buoys (available for future reference at link n.0 of GP's meteo website list) that shows that the nearby buoys most exposed to the west swells are Hanalei, Barbers and Lanai. The first is not influenced by the south swell, so 278 is the real direction, not the ones indicated by the other two. Those ones, in fact, keep feeling the running south swell (which was still providing head high waves yesterday), and propose a direction which is a mix of the two. It's a misleading information, there's two swells instead: a west and a south.


We knew that already because we also know the position of the fetch(es) that generated the swells. Below is the collage of the maps of August 4 to 12 that show the position of the typhoons responsible for the west one. Here's Pat Caldwell's words.
Typhoon Lekima 8/4-6 east of the Philippines aimed swell at Hawaii that was given additional push by nearly stationary typhoon Krosa 8/6-10. Krosa weakened as it tracked away to the NW 8/10-12. The fetch was over 3000 nm away.
This swell is going to last at least a week.


So today there's two options: Lahaina for the south swell (and an improbable but possible west wrap north of Lanai) and Kihei for the west one. More info on shadow lines in the post Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines. There's webcams for both linked in the webcam section, check them out and decide.

North shore
Mokapu
2.8ft @ 6s from 93° (E)

North shore is going to be tiny to flat. That's too small and east of a windswell in fact, and the west energy won't get to the north shore at all.

Wind map at noon.


North Pacific has one last day of west typhoon fetch and a couple of other ones.


Beautiful S fetch in the South Pacific.


Morning sky.

Tuesday 8 13 19 morning call

Another great day of waves on the south shore. This time I did take a photo of the day, but I must have deleted inadvertently, so here's the break called Coke's in the Maldives in a recent swell by Maldives Surf Photographer.


3am significant buoy readings and discussion.
South shore
Barbers

2.8ft @ 15s from 197° (SSW)

2.1ft @ 9s from 166° (SSE)

2ft @ 13s from 197° (SSW)            

Lanai

3ft @ 15s from 193° (SSW)

2.9ft @ 9s from 159° (SSE)

2.1ft @ 13s from 189° (S)

 

3ft 15s again, what else do you want again? Today there's also 2ft 13s and a 3ft 9s southern hemisphere trades windswell that hopefully won't disrupt the lineups much.

 

This is Pat Cladwell's newest write-up describing the history of the fetches.

The mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere had low pressure over New Zealand that shifted eastward 8/4-7. Longer-period swell generated in the Tasman Sea 8/2-4 is arriving locally in Hawaii 8/12 from 208-220 degrees. This energy is expected to drop on Tuesday.
As the low pressure moved east away from New Zealand 8/4, a long, wide fetch over the 185-200 degree band set up with a downward trend in the ocean surface winds 8/4-7. This event has arrived in Hawaii 8/12. The NOAA southern buoys 51002 and 51004 show an upward trend Monday morning in the 13-16s bands. This event is expected to peak overnight and slowly drop while remaining above average into dawn Wednesday. Shorter-period swell should keep the event within background to average 8/14-17 with an overall downward trend from 180-200 degrees.

 

And this is the collage of the fetches maps from August 1 to 5 which might help.

 

This is the Lahaina webcam at sunset: it was pumping. Check it out before going.

North shore
Hanalei
2.2ft @ 8s from 34° (NE)                        

1.6ft @ 13s from 273° (W)

Waimea

1.8ft @ 8s

0.8ft @ 15s from 268° (W)                        

0.7ft @ 13s from 268° (W)

Mokapu
2.9ft @ 8s from 102° (ESE)

Mokapu shows no significant E windswell. Hanalei and Waimea have small W readings from the typhoons, but this energy is predicted to increase tomorrow. Notice also the 8s NE energy (might be more from the N, actually) coming from the re-organized remnants of Flossie, which gave small waves to Hookipa yesterday (and should also today) and I completely forgot to mention in yesterday's call.

Wind map at noon.


North Pacific has mostly the W fetch of Krosa and a couple of other small ones.


Really good fetches in the South Pacific for another good swell next week.


Morning sky.

Monday 8 12 19 morning call

Another gorgeous day of waves of surfing on the south shore, but I was so busy between 2 sessions (best one was SUP foiling), a nap and a lesson that I didn't have time to take pictures. I parked my car at Thousand Peaks at 6am, I left at 2.30pm. Once in town, I stopped at Kanaha where I was supposed to meet some friends for some winging action. There I had the opportunity to try out a Slingshot wing (they look really good), but I was so tired I had to pass... imagine that!

This is  the unmistakable Cloudbreak in a post by Tavarua Island Resort.


The caption was "the uniqueness of last week’s swell was that all spots broke perfectly & consistently for a week straight!". This aerial photo shows the perfection of Restaurants and Namotu with its two waves in the background. You can even see Wilkes pass going off way in the distance.


My friend Eric is a legend. He fell off a tree when he was a teenager and he's been on a wheelchair since. If you surf Hookipa you probably saw him doing his laborious routine to get ready to go surf. The only time he needs help, is when he's all wetsuited and ready on his custom wheeled cart and needs to be pushed across the beach to the shore, where he then performs a seal-like entry in the pounding shore break.

The seat of his wheelchair his giving him blisters (which he can't feel forming, but take forever to heal), so he was recommended to buy a custom seat that won't do that. Here's a funding campaign https://www.gofundme.com/new-spot-for-eric039s-ass if you feel like helping this extraordinary human being.


3am significant buoy readings and discussion
Barbers
2.9ft @ 15s from 191° (SSW)

Lanai
3.2ft @ 15s from 188° (S)

3ft 15s, what else do you want? Check the webcam before going nonetheless.

North shore
Mokapu

2.7ft @ 8s from 110° (ESE)

 

North shore flat again.

 

Wind map at noon.

 

Typhoon Krosa keep spinning and sending us waves from the west. There's a sliver of west energy at a couple of buoys this morning, but it's more likely that tomorrow is going to be the visible start of this long lasting swell. Check the post Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines if you want to start figuring out where it might hit in Maui. The Kihei coast should be the least blocked target, but it might squeeze in somewhere else too.

 

South Pacific continues to provide us with favorable fetches (this one again in the Tasman Sea) in this incredible summer. It's official the best summer that I remember, which means since 2001.

 

Morning sky.