Here's the weather map of March 1st, but I could have chosen any day of the past week or any day of the coming week... they all look the same!
It's actually not unusual at all to have some days of rough short period big N-NE swells and side-on winds in winter time... what's unusual is the amount of days these conditions are lasting! Two weeks?!! Never seen anything like that in the last 8 years.
I've been sailing for at least seven days in a row now. Lucky me, I hear you saying? Not really...
What I REALLY love about Maui is the wonderful variety of conditions that allow me to do both wavesailing (high and light wind) AND surfing (laying down and standup paddling). This may be shocking for most windsurfers, but if Maui was a place where the wind would blow strong 24 hours a day, 365 days a year... I would not live here. My body couldn't take it. I'm all sore after seven days already!
Plus, it gets mildly boring to always sail the same conditions. So, in the attempt of introducing elements of newness, I mounted the camera in a new place (thanks to Glenn for the tip!). And I bought a new board...
Here's the result.
2 27 09 kanaha sideon from giampaolo cammarota on Vimeo.
Clearly you can't turn it on and off, so that means longer editing times. On the other hand, thanks to that I could measure exactly the duration of a couple of swims I had for my board (lost it in the waves at lower Kanaha). Let's see who guesses the longest one. I'll take five guesses in the comments and then I'll declare a winner.
Oh, I'll take the opportunity to remind the readers that I can be hired to film those videos. I can put my cameras pretty much everywhere on your rig and I can follow you with my head band camera. One blog reader already hired me for his April vacation: thanks for that. And remember, the quality of the videos is WAY better before uploading them to vimeo, youtube, etc...
Quick update on those DaKine footstreps. I don't like the back one. It's too stretchy. It's like having a Superfreak as a footstrep. But while the Superfreak absorbs the peak power of a gust (which is a good thing for me), the strep absorbs the peak pressure I put with the top of my foot on the strep to make the board carve on the rail in the bottom turn... and that's not a good thing for me. So, I replaced the back strep with a traditional. I'm allright with front ones. They're actually nice because they are shaped in a way that makes it easy to move the foot in and out and they absorb very little water. Maybe I'll keep this hybrid configuration. No big wipeouts yet, so I can't comment on the safety aspect.
Board: it's a Starboard evil twin 70. I believe it's actually a little more than that (I'd say at least 72) and it planes shockingly early. It's loose in the turns and it didn't require a style adaptation that all the other twinzers that I (quickly) tried so far demanded. So it's an easy board and that little volume is so well balanced that I'm using it without problems even in the ligth wind spells. Haven't really used it in good conditions yet, so stay tuned for a more proper report.
As usual, here's the photo that shows where the camera is. It's upside down, no big deal since there's a very smart setting that allows you to film like that.
Jeff's newest Superfreak ultralight prototype... these sails keep getting better and better.
I drove to Hookipa yesterday and here's what I saw: not a surfer in the water. Not a windsurfer either (just too gnarly). Not a car in the parking lot. Must be boring times for the lifeguards...
In the late afternoon two kitesurfers ventured out. They must have felt quite good to have Hookipa all to themselves (they usually have to stay at Lanes). Kiters are the real winners in these sideon conditions. No super short twin fin windsurf board can achieve the tight turns I've been observing at lowers by the kiters. Plus, going over all that white water is a piece of cake for them, compared to the struggle we experience instead.
Once again I'm thinking about giving it another try. And once again I know that for some reasons I won't...
Forecast. As I said, wind, wind and more wind. The 10-11s NE swell will have a couple of peaks around Monday and Wednesday, but then it will fade leaving us with pure ENE 7-8s windswell... and 3 seconds in the period and a few degrees will make a difference that deserves the adjective 'huge'... for the worse, of course. Fortunately, towards the weekend a NW swell is modeled to hit. We like that.
Here's a very touching video.
Here's a less touching, but quite funny one.
Not quite as touching, nor funny, here's a short video of a music night we recently had with some beach friends. Yes, we only played veeery recent tunes. How's this other one?
Here, I'll leave you with the weather map of exactly one year ago: March 1st 2008. Way less wind and a beautiful fetch brewing a long period NW swell all the way out there... that's what I'm talking about!
Enough of that. I'm off windsurfing today and if the weather gets better (good luck with that!) maybe I'll take photos of one of the very few spots that can offer some decent surfing with this direction. I might surf too, but being Sunday my prediction is that there will be a hell lot of people in the water... we'll see. Stay tuned for that. Aloha.
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