come sailing with me!

That's what it looks like when watching this little video that I slapped together.

Warning: the sound is everything in it. Make sure you are in an environment that allows you to hear (for example, how's the sound of that wave at 1:07...).



I really like when I can compare two photos from different points of view.
This is from the beach.


And this is from my forehead. Cool, uh?


Well, that was last week. This week instead... what we had this week? A hell lot of wind and some seriously shitty weather.
Believe it or not, the two things are very related. Most of the rain that falls on the east facing part of the hawaiian islands is due to the trade winds. The stronger they blow, the more humidity they push up the cliffs of the volcanos and the more precipitations happen (especially in winter when the atmosphere is more unstable).
So, whenever you see a forecast for strong trade winds in Maui, don't get too excited. The chances that the squalls will get in the way of the sailing are pretty high (like today, for example).

Strong trades usually also mean lack of significant ground swells, since the high pressure that generates them keeps the storms distant from us and moving in an unfavorable direction.
But they're usually associated with a windswell, so it could be worse.
Yesterday, for example, I had quite a lot of fun.

I got in the water with a 4.5, but couldn't hang on it. I replaced it with a 4.0, but was still struggling (it doesn't matter how small your sail is if the strong wind is creating big chops on the face of the wave) when the wind suddenly eased a lot.
There we go, slogging and surfing extremely underpowered on a 70l board and a 4.0. One of the best expressions of wave sailing in my book. The fun factor went through the roof and I even received a little compliment for a decently ridden wave by a guy called Mark Angulo. Thanks, that felt good.

Photos of that day. I'm aware of two places were you can see some.
1) The usual gallery of water shots from Francky.
2) Dan took some photos that visiting Luca put on a slideshow.

Dave Kalama is a great guy and can climb a ladder. He's even got a blog.


Windsurfjournal.com has a new SUP section (that's where I saw the photo above). Check the last video of Laird with a GoPro on the board. It's all paddling till around min 5 and min 7. But when he's on those two Hanalei Bay beauties, that's pure poetry.

Aloha.

PS. If you need to clean the screen of your computer, click here.