The five day break ended with a gift. At about 2:30pm Andy called, on his way to Crossovers. The wind was OFFSHORE! Colby and I were so busy, I hadn't even noticed or thought it might happen. I thought surfing was over for the next few days. I had cleaned out the car, and put my board away. Then Bob was on the line, and then Karen, and we were all waiting to hear the report from Andy. Crossovers wasn't happening. But it all came together about 4pm. I ran down the rocks, and started walking toward the pier when I heard them yelling my name. There they were, Andy and Karen. Andy had been out already and was walking back up the beach, due to the drift, when he had seen Karen. He was so pumped up. I could see him describing a wave he'd had. We all paddled out together, and you could see right away it was breaking really good and hollow. Karen paddled way outside, while the drift pulled Andy and I right down to the pier. Along the way we had some fun! Once we got on the north side of the pier, a silly peak roared up that no one got, but Andy was hooting at it as it threw out and over. It was so much fun, and not as cold as yesterday's dawn patrol to the point. That had been quite the adventure, riding down there in the soft sand. It wasn't classic point, but it was fun. It was fun hanging out on the beach, getting ready to paddle out. It was fun talking out in the water with Steve Borema. We talked about how far he has come since those lost days when he was twenty and hanging out at the shop talking to me hours on end... It's always more fun surfing with your friends. Today the waves were better, for sure. Every single wave I had felt right, the board solid and great under my feet. It only further cemented into my mind how really great that 6'2" David Hamilton shape is! Now, it's back to work...
I'm going to start this Sunday post with Uncle Pat's forecast summary: "calendar shows fall although the surf says winter."
Have a look at this photo from yesterday's surf contest at Sunset beach (Oahu) and you'll see what he means.
The live webcast is on as I'm posting (hey, my computer can multitask, just like me!). I just watched aussie veteran Mark Occhilupo (42) advance in his heat together with young Maui surfer Dusty Payne (19).
This is the weather map of Sunday morning.
As you can see a deep low is up there pushing waves our way. The front is almost completely occluded already and that means that the low is not going to move much. Actually that other smaller low on the left is going to join in and give life to a situation which will give us huge waves pretty much all next week.
Here's how Uncle Pat explains it:"The jet stream has set up a large equatorward loop in the central north Pacific. This is the Aleutian low, a feature seen in climatology based on the persistence of low pressure in a broad area straddling the dateline between 35-50°N latitude. The synoptic, or daily changing large scale pattern, of the coming days shows a family of extratropical cyclones forming off Japan then tracking east to reinforce the mother low pressure area just south of the Aleutians."
Check the website of the Eddie Aikau event at Waimea, 'cause it may easily be held. Tuesday and Thursday are my best guesses.
Last, but not least, here's a stellar performance of my friend Darian.
He who won a bag of goods at the Second Wind's sale by winning a three hot dogs eating contest. Good job...
How it happened was nothing short of a miracle, really. The planets aligned in my favor this time. I had to be at the bakery at 6:30am, and was relieved when I heard the waves were small and the tide was high. There lurked a small glimmer of hope, maybe there would be at least a rideable wave when I finished up mid-morning? Maybe. I got home to find Colby ready to go to the beach. Part of the miracle was the wind was offshore from the southwest, and it was warming up so much that he had the windows and doors open. I was getting the nervous twitters, excitement brewing, maybe the tide had dropped just enough to make it rideable by now? He rode the bike, I took the car. When I walked over the overlook and looked out, I could see distinct lines, and green water, beautiful green, not the murk of late. A wave crested and began to break. Andy was on the cell with me at that moment, and I was telling him it just might be worth leaving work. He was on his way, he said. I called Karen. Bob, too. They had all left messages about how they had been checking of the surf all morning for naught. Now, it was time. And, for once, I was there! I paddled out, no one even in the lineup. The day was sparkling clear, not a cloud, perfect light offshore winds. How could this be real? I caught a few small ones before one guy paddled out near me. Then I looked to see Colby on the beach! I paddled in to say hi. He had his camera, and was going to record the day. Josh paddled out after about an hour of it, and the other guy left. How could it be that waves this fun were being shared by just us? Karen arrived, then Andy. It was so much fun, surfing with just us! Andy had a screaming left, and Karen had one really good right that she was squealing over. What fun! Despite the water feeling so cold on my feet, the sun felt so warm. What a gift. This day was so unexpected.
Great success of the annual Paia bay invitational surf contest.
I'm clearly going to start my self-centric report with a photo of the beautiful, picture perfect ass (talk about Reef models...) that was in my first heat and made me completely lose my concentration.
Look at me jumping in the water after her... what else can I be focused on? The waves?!? Gimme a break! (no pun intended)
Anyway, on top of being a model she's also a solid surfer and she kicked ass (!) and advanced. Unfortunately she had to leave and I got to advance in her place. She was strongly missed... Ok, let's talk briefly about the contest now. Look at the organizational effort! I believe those 1,000 bucks could be spent only with the sponsors reported on the check...
The board.
The six finalists.
Da winnah: Michelle Crompton from Devon, UK! She ruled all the guys with late takeoffs, whipping turns and a kamikaze shore break tube ride, like Bruce Irons at Waimea. She didn't even need to flash her boobs to impress the judges, like she did in her first heat!!
Second place: Lee.
Third place: Poof. I mean, Sid.
And now a selection of beach scenes, starting with some of the judges playing football during the final... just to give you an idea of how serious the whole thing is!
Thanksgiving wasn't over yet, as a sunset sailing session was to be held at Mr. Henderson's place. We caught a couple of fun waves on our longboards and I met Eddie: a rock at Uppers that sticks out on low tide. It doesn't stick always out, though. Only when the wave approaches and sucks the water off the reef... not particularly easy to spot.
Today it's Friday, the big NW swell is on the rise (9 feet, 18 seconds at 7am at the NW buoy!), the contest at Sunset beach in Oahu is on (women first), the weather map shows no wind all day... It's going to be an epic surfing day and right after this post, quickly made while sitting on the toilet (I'm sure you guys are thrilled to learn that), this is what I am going to do: surf and enjoy yet another marvelous day in Maui.
Well, I told you not to get too excited, but you asked for it anyway...
What do you think about me as a Reef model? Should I talk to Scott Trudon about sponsorship?
Are you disturbed by the visual content of this post? You should thank god that I put all the other ones in a slideshow instead of posting each single one of them!
About to puke? Blame photographer Corey Arnold who was at Hookipa taking photos for his travel story and thought that I was a character iconic enough to ask me to pose for a random photoshoot... "What, you want to take photos of me with that big and expensive camera? SURE!!!" So vain...
What strucks me is that yes, now I look like a surfer. You should see instead my photo on the 2001 HP badge that I still have... quite a radical transformation. Talking about which, here's a funny clip to illustrate what still lays behind the surfer look...
Anyway, trying not to make this the most insignificant post ever, let me mention that there will be a sale at the Quatro/Goya/MFC shop at the Haiku cannery on West Kuiaha on Friday and Saturday morning (sorry Pascal, blogger doesn't load the pdf).
No wait! I did take a few photos at Hoo yesterday too. Bloody windy and gusty, I survived another session made only to get a water shot from Ben. I didn't talk to him yet, but I'm afraid he didn't get much... what a shitty water photographer he is! He was out of position for that one single good wave I was able to catch in 1 hour and a half... shame on you Ben!
I instead, keep loving what I take out of my lil Sony and Nico is going to be happy again.
And again.
A little bit of Diony.
11.30am: got to go to the Pay bay invitational. Can't miss the opening (of the beers) ceremony...
Ask any Hookipa regular who's the guy who throws the highest backloops and you will hear one name: Nico Drasimino.
He's a super nice guy from Argentina (like pretty much all of them that I know), he's not a pro, but he jumps really, really high. Think I'm exaggerating? Check his famous youtube clip. I like Nelisblog's comment: "tjezus christ what a jump!"
Unfortunately, I had the camera zoomed in too much to really appreciate the height. The thing is that I was following Nat Gill riding the same wave a bit more downwind when, THANKS TO THE FACT THAT I WAS LOOKING IN THE LCD DISPLAY OF MY LOVELY SONY and not in the viewfinder of that stupid Canon (that I'm so going to return!), I saw him blasting out with the periferal vision of my upwind eye and I was able to redirect the shot. Not to change the zoom though.
As a comparison, here's a jump of an unkown sailor. I played with zoom on this photo on the computer a bit, trying to get a similar zoom to Nico's one, and I think that in this photo he would be right at the very top of it.
Anyway, who cares how high exactly he went! He went high... oh-my-god kind of high! Lots of people can backloop at Hookipa, but for some reasons Nico's ones are my favorite.
Just like Francisco Goya's bottom turns. Check this one out (and the superduper digital zoom of my Sony...). Click on the photo and get yourself a magnifying lens to appreciate the microscopic distance between his boom and the water...
In this department I feel like mentioning Levi, KP, Polakow and Naish as my other favorite ones, but there's something about Cisco's bottom turns... I think it's the supersonic speed at which he does them.
As you guys probably figured out by now, conditions were pretty damn good at Hoo today. Give this place a 4 feet, 14 seconds bump from 330 with the help of a 7 feet, 9 seconds windswell, and you'll miracolously get head to logo high sets with a few sporadic mast highers. Add strong and offshore wind and you'll get unexpectedly epic conditions. Think I'm exaggerating again? Check these other photos...
Levi, always a photographers favorite.
John Skye is consistently ripping hard.
I'm usually not a Naish sails fan, but that sail looks quite good. Skye boy again.
Another of my favorite sailors: Nat Gill. He landed this aerial 360 off the lip perfectly. 10 from the italian judge.
You can count on KP to do something worthy in every session...
In between sessions, he couldn't stay put and he went for a water photo shooting... without a helmet! Now, that's bold. No pun intended... ;-)
Diony's new Superfreak. Now, that really is bold!
More photos in this slideshow. If it stops, click on the x on the top right to make it start again.
My session report. I stopped by Hookipa around 12.30 and seen the size of the waves I was going to go sail somewhere else downwind. But then I saw my friend Benjamin getting in the water to shoot and I decided to challenge the fate... what would I not do for a good water shot! I always say:"the photographers in the water are annoying and dangerous... unless they're taking photos of me, of course!"
Anyway, don't know what happened to Ben, but he swam in after 10 minutes and left me out there without a purpose in life... other than trying to save my ass and don't go on the rocks. Which I managed to, unexpectedly. Didn't manage to have too much fun though... too many people, too many times too close to the rocks. I had a really good one lined up with no one else on the way, but of course a 30+ knots gust on the wave face made my 4.7 way too big to sheet in in the bottom turn.
< And all of a sudden, the shuffle selection I had on my WMP came up with "Come to my aid" by Simple red... Simple red?!! Jesus, I really got all kinds of shit on my hard disk! >
Where was I? After an hour of survival sailing I sat to take photos and after that, around 4, I ventured back out. I got immediately nailed by a big one on my way out, brushed the rocks on the consequent wipeout/swim, caught a nice wave but ended up downwind of guy who wasn't too willing to share... "Fuck this shit, I'm going to Lanes!" What a great decision that was.
It was me and Elliot Leboe on his kite... we often share waves/sessions either in superlight wind at Kanaha or standup surfing. He's got a good energy, never aggressive and very respectful of priorities. Plus, he absolutely rips and it's a great pleasure to watch him carving hard on those small surfboards he uses. I had a blast. The quality of the wave wasn't as good as Hookipa, but the quality of life was much better! Didn't have to worry about the others, could choose the section of the wave that I wanted and didn't have to swim like Michael Phelps to save the gear from the rocks! I was so relaxed that I finally even managed to make a couple of decent turns!
Forecast. More of the same tomorrow, Wednesday. Actually, a bit smaller waves. Thursday instead, I don't care if it's windy or not, I'll take part to the annual Paia Bay invitational surf contest, to which I was honored to be invited.
Everybody knows that an extra-large NW swell will hit on Friday. No one knows what the wind is going to do. That's the case when the front generating the swell gets very close to the islands. I personally think that there will be not enough wind for windsurfing... but sure enough for surfing! :-) Oh, DO NOT miss out the webcast of the second event of the Triple Crown of surfing at Sunset beach. Just pray for the waves not to be too big... Hey Ian, when are we going to webcast the Bay invitational??!
What not everybody knows is that next week another extra-large swell will hit. This one actually looks bigger to me, but from a more westerly direction. Too early for details, I just love when the north Pacific remembers that it's winter time...
Quite characteristically, I'm going to ignore (for the moment, at least) the suggestions I received regarding the posting topics list. But you guys keep voting... Actually, I'm gonna report it again here and add a couple of more items. 1) reef model (don't get too excited) 2) underwear website link 3) windsurfing pole vault video 4) quatro/goya/mfc sale banner 5) photos kanaha (mine and alex) 6) photos hookipa (mine and jazz) 7) Kazuma series 8) my new wave board quiver (I still have to take a photo of this) 9) Chico's amazing windsurfing photos 10) windsurf boards museum. You guys won't believe your eyes... 11) description of a scary moment at Hookipa
Some bloggers post almost every day even when they haven't really much to say.
I instead, usually like to make my posts full of stuff. Sometimes though, I accumulate so much material that it will take me a whole day to put it together in a satisfying manner. Since I don't have all that time (in particular this morning I only have like 15 minutes) I'm going to break my rule and do a lil post. Let's see... here's a list of things I could post:
1) reef model (don't get too excited) 2) underwear website link 3) windsurfing pole vault video 4) quatro/goya/mfc sale banner 5) photos kanaha (mine and alex) 6) photos hookipa (mine and jazz) 7) Kazuma series 8) my new wave board quiver (I still have to take a photo of this)
You guys post a comment and let me know what you'd like to see first. In the meantime, enjoy a couple of photos of Hookipa yesterday. Diony is back on the island and he's quite visible in the water with that yellow Fire...
It was pretty damn windy and I was debating if to go out on 4.2 and 68l (yes, my favorite kind of conditions...), but when I saw Kai Katchadourian riggin a 4.0 I wisely decided to pass... That's what I did to my foot the day before with 4.5 wind... imagine what I would have done to my body with an overpowered 4.2!
These guys in Holland, instead, don't seem to mind strong wind... amazing photos! I would have surely died... while wearing the wetsuit! Respect to all sailors in the world that sail in those temperatures and those conditions.
