6 6 15 morning call

Pretty good day on the south shore yesterday. The reinforcement wasn't as strong as someone thought, but there were still beautiful waves to be ridden. The one below was one of them for me.


Instead of boring you with my lame surfing, today I'm gonna post a little video of an encounter with a marine mammal. Too bad she got scared of me and swam away.

 

Buoys
NW
5.6ft @ 13s from 323° (NW)

2.1ft @ 10s from 322° (NW)

Waimea
3.4ft @ 14s from 323° (NW)

Pauwela
3.2ft @ 8s from 91° (E)           

2.9ft @ 14s from 356° (N)

2.5ft @ 11s from 92° (E)

Barbers
3.1ft @ 14s from 282° (WNW)           

1.2ft @ 8s from 171° (S)

The NW swell is here and it's pretty healthy. No wind and a bunch of people in the water at Hookipa already as shown by the webcam. I'll join them and post an update from the beach soon.
Despite the lack of south readings at the Barbers buoy, the south swell is still here and the lahaina cam still shows some beautiful glassy waves in the early morning.
So, double option today.

Wind on the north shore will be very light till around 10. Then light trades will pick up and become a little stronger by 1pm as the MC2km maps shows below.
I'm off at 2 and I'm hoping for a sneaky slog and surf sailing session after that.

Wind map doesn't show anything good at all. I'm off the island on Tuesday, I think I got lucky with the timing again.

South shore coming in at waist to shoulder high. There should be bigger sets, but I didn't see any. Glassy everywhere.

6 5 morning call

Yesterday was another fun day on the south shore. To give my paddling muscles a break, I chose to do a bit of SUP surfing.

This photo is to show you the water quality. First hour I was by myself.


Second hour with one other guy. I love when towards the end of a really good swell the Maui surfers get lazy and don't feel like surfing anymore... or don't know there's still waves.
Well, if check this blog, you guys won't have the second problem anymore.


Below is a short clip to give you an idea of how squirly a 6.6 SUP can get.




Buoys
NW
3.3ft @ 15s from 2° (N)

Pauwela

3ft @ 8s from 98° (E)

2.4ft @ 12s from 90° (E)

2.3ft @ 5s from 76° (ENE)

Barbers

 

2.9ft @ 15s from 191° (SSW)

SE
3.6ft @ 13s from 164° (SSE)


Wow, 3.3f 15s from N sneaking up on us at the NW buoy, let's see if that materializes during the day.
No idea where that comes from, let me remind you that the 3f NW swell is forecasted for tomorrow.
At the moment (6am), it's a beautiful windless morning on the north shore, but there's pretty much no waves at Hookipa, as the webcam snap shows below (on the left).
On the right it's the lahaina webcam and that instead shows some action.
Did we need that? Not really, since the buoys went up again as the forecasted reinforcing bump arrived, but webcams are clearly a great tool to verify what the buoy readings show. Sometimes you can gather additional information like local wind, swell consistency and number of people.




Windless on the north shore in the early morning because the trades flow veered a bit to the ESE, and that's what happens when it's like that. Later on there will be some wind wrapping around the point, but not sailable.

MC2km map below is for noon.

Earth wind map doesn't show a single fetch aiming at us and that's why Surfline put the following accurate and succinct sentence in their "Hawaii at a glance" email:
Friday will see a reinforcing pop of fun-size SSW-South swell, then easing through the weekend. Meanwhile, some modest East Andres swell will show for the next few days on the easterly exposures of the Aloha State. And lastly, a post-season pulse of fun NW swell will move in this weekend. However, you better get it now, because next week is looking bleak.

PS I changed the settings so that the blog now appears on your mobile device as it does on your computer. Please leave comments with your feedback/preference about this.

1000 peaks knee to belly high and clean

6 4 15 morning call

Ok, I won't call yesterday another fantastic day of surfing on the south shore because my early morning session wasn't fantastic like it has been for the past many days. It was just good though, with some gems like the one below.
And it's highly possible that it still was fantastic for someone. I just found it a lot slower than the previous days, due to an extreme low tide and a declining swell.

Buoys
Pauwela
4.8ft @ 8s from 86° (E)

2.6ft @ 6s from 73° (ENE)

1.2ft @ 14s from 82° (E)

Barbers
2.1ft @ 13s from 193° (SSW)

SE
3.2ft @ 13s from 144° (SE)

SW
1.9ft @ 15s from 156° (SSE)

1.8ft @ 13s from 164° (SSE)

Mostly windswell at the Pauwela buoy (Hookipa almost flat at sunset), but notice also that foot 14s from the hurricane swell. 82 it's not the best direction for Hookipa, but seen the relatively long period it is possible that some sporadic set will manage to wrap into Pavillions and The point.
Small though, also considering the reading of the Mokapu buoy in Oahu: 1.4ft @ 14s from 105° (ESE) . If that is the original direction, Hookipa might get very little energy from it.
Should be increasing the next few days though.

South detecting buoys are all going down and here's the graph of the Barbers Point one.
The south swell is the blue one while the black line is what you read if you go on the NOAA site. As you can see, a whole foot of difference. I call that deceiving and I'll keep check my buoys on Surfline instead.
2f 13s is still a fun size though, so I might have to go again this morning before work, also because I feel a bit of wind on the north shore.
A possible increase in size is forecasted for tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it at the buoys.

Talking about wind, here's the windguru prediction for the day. It shows some trades today.

Wind map shows a weak fetch NW of us (tail end of the storm that generated the weekend NW swell) and a decent one east of New Zealand. That usually means a small south swell in a week. For this one, I'm gonna guess a little more than that, since the wind is not very strong and the period will not be very high (slower travelling speed) and the tail of the fetch is well more south than usual (longer distance).

The Women WSL Fiji event went exactly as I predicted, so I feel motivated to try to do the same for the main event. Stay tuned for that.

Little smaller, but still shoulder to head high sets

6 3 15 morning call

Guess what: yesterday was yet another fantastic day of surfing on the south shore!

I only have a photo of a small wave from Olowalu to show, so you have to trust me on that.





Buoys
NW

3.3ft @ 7s from 92° (E)

2.6ft @ 14s from 147° (SE)

2.1ft @ 10s from 320° (NW)

Pauwela

3.7ft @ 8s from 72° (ENE)

2.5ft @ 6s from 67° (ENE)

1.5ft @ 3s from 70° (ENE)

0.6ft @ 15s from 45° (NE)

 

Barbers
2.4ft @ 15s from 181° (S)

SE
3.5ft @ 13s from 197° (SSW)

SW
2.5ft @ 14s from 182° (S)

North shore looks like mostly windswell (Hookipa was waist high last night) while the south detecting buoys are all trending down. I'll take 2-3f 14s any day though. So, once again, south is the place to go (unless you don't know how to surf and want to windsurf/kite).
There should be sailable conditions on the north shore, in fact. Interesting short

 

strong wind episode during tonight according to the generous NAM3 model, with associated precipitation.

Wind maps shows a decent little fetch in the NW corner, that swell will show up in the weekend.
The fetch in the tasman sea is not going to do a hell lot for us, but it will get the comp going with some serious surf.

Let me dig into that and show you the Surfline forecast for those beautiful islands.

They are one day ahead and they only have the 4th and 5th to complete the women.
They need to time it right today, otherwise it's gonna get too big tomorrow: 12f 15s!
I love doing these kind of calls. That's where the name "morning call" comes from.
But I do hope I'm wrong and they're gonna run the finals on Friday instead. That would be extremely cool to watch. We're talking 30-40 feet faces.




BTW, watch out the extreme tides in Maui you guys. I never mention them, because I assume that every surfer knows how to check the tide and does that before planning a session.
But from the phone calls/messages I receive, it definitely seems a little overlooked topic.
AND, most tide watches are completely wrong, that's why I don't own one.
I check the tides at link n.12 and those are 100% accurate. If you have a tide watch, check it against that and if it doesn't match, throw it away.

 

Lahaina side still coming in at solid shoulder to head high from what I saw from the road. Might have occasionally bigger sets

6 2 15 morning call

Yet again, yesterday was another fantastic day of surfing on the south shore.
I've been starting the post like that for 10 days or so and it doesn't seem it's gonna change any time soon.

These are the photos I took before paddling out for my second session yesterday morning. First one was on the SUP on a north Kihei reef, but the tide was sketchy low on that one.

Roque was ripping as usual.

Charlie Smith was out there too..

This is a clip of a wave that I managed to blow thanks to a little too much weight on the rail. You'll see a little wake coming on top of the board and knocking me off, and the only thing that could have created that wake, was the front rail that I buried for a fraction of second in the water.
Incredible how delicate the balance of everything is when you're riding a surfboard on a wave.





Buoys
Pauwela

3.5ft @ 7s from 55° (ENE)

1.7ft @ 9s from 67° (ENE)

1.3ft @ 4s from 68° (ENE)

1ft @ 11s from 341° (NNW)

Barbers
3ft @ 17s from 185° (S)

2.2ft @ 14s from 189° (S)

 

SE
4.5ft @ 16s from 189° (S)

SW
4.2ft @ 16s from 169° (SSE)

Still plenty long period energy at all the buoys (not the Pauwela, of course), so plenty more action today.

The wind will be light trades, maybe sailable in the afternoon on the north shore.





Wind map shows a little fetch in the NW corner (3f 12s from the NW on Saturday) and a beautiful strong fetch in the Tasman Sea. The Fiji contest is gonna be fun to watch. The ladies are ripping and Tatiana is becoming my new favorite female surfer.

6 1 15 morning call

I might sound repetitive, but when the message is so positive, I don't think you guys mind repetitive: yet another great day of surfing yesterday on the south shore.

 

I surfed Breakwall in the early morning and there were DOH sets that looked like indo. In particular, the reef in front of the beach looked like Impossibles in Bali, and just like that properly named spot, among the perfectly but too fastly peeling waves, once in a while there was one that looked possible.

Photo of Breakwall later in the day is from Jimmie Hepp. Does it look like Breakwall???


And how's this impersonation of the Bukit by Olowalu point?



I didn't take too many shots, this is another break in the Lahaina area.

 

Makena side was small in the morning, but it got pumping action later in the day and I scored over there too.

 Buoys
Pauwela
3.4ft @ 6s from 54° (ENE)

2.7ft @ 8s from 74° (ENE)

0.8ft @ 12s from 342° (NNW)

Barbers
3.4ft @ 18s from 179° (S)           

2.4ft @ 15s from 186° (S)

 

SW
6.4ft @ 17s from 186° (S)

SE
5.2ft @ 17s from 188° (S)

 

Swell went clearly up a notch as forecasted. Gonna be difficult to find a spot that doesn't close out if you go lahaina side. One thing I can recommend is to go early, since 10am is the last time of the day in which Maui County 2km leaves that area in blue (map below). After that, some kind of onshore wind should pick up.
On the other hand, there's a minus tide at 8.20 in Lahaina, so unless you hit it before that, it's gonna be tough to find a good spot no matter what. Be creative, is my advice.



The reason the swell is picking today is that 7 days ago the strong fetch that generated it moved completely over New Zealand and unleashed its energy without obstructions. The pressure went down to 930 and that's a hell of a low.
Below is the wind map of that day that shows the fetch that I'm talking about.

 

The wind map of today is not as exciting unfortunately, but not depressing either.
A tiny almost insignificant fetch in the NW corner, but more importantly a new born fetch in the Tasman Sea. Good season for Fiji, that's for sure.We'll get a bit of a SW swell in a week, but hopefully the fetch is still gonna be strong once it crosses over to the east of NZ.