Friday 4 6 18 morning call

A SUP foiling session for me yesterday. It was at Hookipa and that was a first. Pretty fun, but short rides on the inside and some apprehension to negotiate the shore break. In the morning, the waves got progressively better and conditions magically improved to a 5 when Kai Lenny hit the water. Here's a shot with a beautiful light.


5am significant buoy readings
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 0.6 9s, which is pretty much nothing. I wonder how big/small the windswell left by 4 days of kona is, but I have no reports.

North shore
Pauwela
1.8ft @ 9s from 320° (NW)

1.7ft @ 8s from 322° (NW)                      

1.1ft @ 11s from 314° (NW)

 

We went from tiny and clean to tiny and onshore. Don't waste your time going to Hookipa today, unless you're foiling. This week has been pretty horrible from the surfing point of view (mostly for the lack of energy), but the weekend and next week it'll be a completely different story. Below is the long term Surfline table, which is something I'm not supposed to post, as it is subscribers only content.

But I hope that showing it once in a while will show the readers how cool it is to know what's coming 17 days ahead. If you click on the links n.14 and 15 and then on the offshore swells tab, you still get the next three days if you're not a subscriber. Knowing the long term forecast can be useful for planning work vs play time and it's key if you want to take a last minute surf trip based on the forecast (I do that when I go to Indo).

Anyway, four NW swells back to back, the second of which might reach warning levels. As you can see, unfortunately the trades are going to get pretty strong mid next week and the related windswell will become quite elevated. But Honolua will be breaking beautifully.
There are also going to be quite some windsurfing action at Hookipa, as many brands are waiting for the right conditions for their annual photoshoots.

Wind map at noon. Too onshore for decent sailing on the north shore.

 

North Pacific shows a close by NW fetch (tomorrow's swell) and a remote one (Tuesday's big one).

 

South Pacific shows a small fetch NE of New Zealand and an extremely remote S one. So remote, that I had to slide the map down and write a letter H to indicate the approximate position of Hawaii. No idea of how much we're going to get from down there, but Surfline has a long period swell starting Mid next Sunday and lasting pretty much all week, reaching about 2 feet.


Morning sky.

6.30am Hookipa has waist to occasionally chest high waves with frequent moments of flatness. Pretty strong kona and light rain.
2

Thursday 4 5 18 morning call

No water action for me yesterday, as the poor wave conditions continue. No photo of the day either, so here's another image from the past KalamaKamps. I booked my flights, so I'm officially in for the May 25th week. More info here. $50 discount for the blog readers.




4am significant buoy readings
South shore
SE
1.4ft @ 11s from 186° (S)

1.1ft @ 13s from 150° (SE)

 

Some low long period energy at the SE buoy, but it's onshore over there.

North shore

Hanalei

2.8ft @ 10s from 321° (NW)                       

1.5ft @ 13s from 304° (WNW)

 

Pauwela

2.3ft @ 9s from 331° (NNW)                      

1.1ft @ 14s from 327° (NW)

 

The NW bump arrived, but it's pretty tiny. Plus the Kona is blowing pretty strong this morning, I don't expect anything particularly good at Hookipa. Stay tuned for a beach report later.

 

Wind map at noon. The Kona should start lightening up in the afternoon.

North Pacific shows a WNW, a NW and a NNE fetch. Next week is actually shaping up to be quite an excellent one for Honolua with three different swells from favorable directions.

 

South Pacific shows a small SE fetch.

Morning sky. The front in the top left corner should be the one that will make the wind switch to NE tonight.

In the meantime, the small sub-front is bringing some rain on the south shores.

6.30am Hookipa is almost completely flat

Wednesday 4 4 18 morning call

No water action for me yesterday. I was slightly tempted by the many foilers riding the inside at Hookipa at sunset, but it didn't look particularly epic, so I decided that my body could use a full day of rest.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 0.9f 11s, but it's going to be onshore.

North shore
Hanalei

2.9ft @ 8s from 358° (N)                      

0.9ft @ 14s from 319° (NW)

 

Pauwela

2.5ft @ 9s from 5° (N)

Very small energy from the north should make for one of the smallest mornings of the year so far. The small 14s reading at Hanalei is a sign of new NW energy from the fetch we observed in the last couple of days. As calculated in the Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines post, the travel time at 14s from Hanalei to us is 9h, so expect a small bump in the afternoon.

 

Wind map at noon.

 

North Pacific shows a NW and a tiny N fetch.

 

South Pacific has a couple of scattered small fetches that I didn't deem worth circling.

 

Morning sky.

Tuesday 4 3 18 morning call

A longboard session for me yesterday. Here's a windsurfer sailing at Hookipa with the Kona in the afternoon. The Kona wind is not unusual in April. Four consecutive days of it, are a bit unusual. But, as Pat Caldwell says, nature doesn't like to be put in the cookie cutter.


6am significant buoy readings
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for nothing. There will be the windswell of the Kona and it's gonna be onshore.

North shore
Hanalei
4.6ft @ 10s from 329° (NW)

Pauwela
3.1ft @ 8s from 84° (E)

For some reason, the Surfline algorithm to separates the energy of the swells hitting a buoy only picked up the E one at Pauwela, but both the Hanalei reading and the below graph show that there should be at least 3f 10s from the NW too. Overall the waves should be pretty similar to yesterday at Hookipa. I might do a beach report from there later in the morning.


Wind map at noon.


North Pacific shows a very elongated fetch made by several weak lows. It should make for small medium period waves starting tomorrow afternoon.


South Pacific shows a very remote SSW fetch.


Morning sky.

6.45am Hookipa is inconsistent chest to head high with moments of flatness. Clean though, with light konas that should increase throughout the day.
For a change, the photo shows the lack of sets.
4

Monday 4 1 18 morning call

A shortboard and two SUP foiling sessions for me yesterday. First one wasn't that great (when I saw it from the cliff it looked like an 8, but in the water it was like a 5. When I left it looked good again), but the last two were fantastic. Check the butter smooth conditions in this photo showing Dave Kalama gliding on a glassy wall. Obviously foiling will be one of the activities of the Fiji KalamaKamp I mentioned yesterday. Here's the website with additional info that I forgot to link yesterday.


I took this shot from the beach instead: Maui's foildrome at its finest.


Here's a little wave I filmed with the mouth mount.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 1f 12s.

North shore
NW101

6.9ft @ 10s

Hanalei
5ft @ 10s from 325° (NW)

Pauwela

3.1ft @ 9s from 39° (NE)

2.5ft @ 11s from 323° (NW)

 

Get used to seeing Hanalei in the reported buoys, with the NW ones not showing the direction and Waimea down, it's now the most important one to check for swells coming from the NW.
NW swell down to 10-11 seconds and 3 feet locally, waves are going to be relatively small at Hookipa. Stay tuned for a beach report later. The trend is a down one, gonna get close to flat soon, but fortunately there still are fairly strong storms predicted to form in the long term.
 

Wind map at noon shows potential for port tack sailing at Hookipa.


North Pacific today shows two NW fetches. The closest one is associated with the low that will bring us Kona winds from today till Thursday.


Nothing in the South Pacific.


Morning sky.

6am nw swell at Hookipa is down to head to occasionally head and a half. Clean.
8

Sunday 4 1 18 morning call

Let me start today's call with a bit of promotion of Dave Kalama's camp in Namotu (May 26 - June 02). I'm going and I'm trying to help fill up the last few available spots. Here's a few key points:

- world class waterman DK

- Guest coaches : World Long board champion Colin McPhilips, waterman and ambasador Jerry Bess from Big Island, World Class Australian Water Patrol & surfer James “Billy Watson” and others.

- Award winning Surf Photographer Peter “Joli” Wilson

- World class resort for waves, location and hospitality

- Private island for the week

- Instructionals on and off water

- world class sup, foil, surf, snorkel

- open and great for all levels and abilities

- email reach@kalamakamp.com for more information and mention that you saw this on the MSR blog for a $50 discount.

 

My first and only Namotu experience is described in this series of posts and it was truly memorable.

A shortboard and a SUP foiling session for me yesterday. Here's an image from the first one: beautiful waves at Hookipa in the early morning.


Here's another one taken by my friend Matias.


Here's a couple from the beach.




4am significant buoy readings
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for .7f 14s.

North shore
NW101
6.1ft @ 11s

Hanalei
7.5ft @ 13s from 309° (WNW)

Pauwela
3.8ft @ 13s from 325° (NW)

3.3ft @ 9s from 77° (ENE)

 

The difference between the Hanalei reading and the Pauwela one almost makes me want to move to Kauai, but fortunately Maui has plenty pluses, so I won't. I sure would love to surf Hanalei Bay again though. Anyway, digressing too much here, below is the collage of:
- Pauwela's graph
- Surfline forecast as of March 30th
- Surfline forecast as of today.

As you can see, the swell peaked a bit earlier than predicted (I think the best waves were right at sunrise), and today it should be slowly tapering down all day. Stay tuned for an early Hookipa report.

Wind map at noon. Early morning should be very clean.


North Pacific doesn't have any fetches. Mid week the north shore will be pretty small, possibly flat.


Neither does South Pacific, and April could have not started worse.


Morning sky.