Maui 30.11.08

Yeasterday i sold my trusty Mazda minivan. since it had gone from having one to having two warninglights in the dashboard i let it go for 450 $ took the bus in to Kahului this morning and rented a nice corolla from the guys at word of mouth. after that i drove over to Hi tech and rented a SUP board. some of my newfound wealth from selling the car i invested in a nice Manfrotto monopod with a head. wanted to try it so i went up to H-bay. the waves there was a little smaller than expected but i got a couple of shots. after that it was over to Thousand Peaks for some Stand up paddle surfing ! it was fun small waves. one thing with the SUP boards is that they are really heavy,big and they will keep speed on anything that resembles a wave or white water. theyre also really hard to turn. you have to run a mile to the back of the board and jump on the tail to kick out of the wave. i found out this when the board was just speeding towards the REALLY shallow inside. i jumped of the backed and tried to land flat in about 7 inches of water.. landed with the spine on a protruding piece of coral.. No im a proud owner of a "Maui tattoo" got it in a really unradical way, but i will of course tell the girls at the hostel that i got washed across the reef of Hookipa by a monster closeout :) i was bleeding so i had to get out of the water. drove up to the cliff at Hookipa and spent the afternoon there watching the big swell crashing on the reefs !

Stand Up Fun !

i was a little depressed with the fact that the wind would mellow down. had a lot of good sailing lately. however today i got the brilliant idea to rent a SUP board. took it to lowers. there were some nice waves. went out around 1 oclock and it was a little bit windy for a beginner. a little chop makes balancing so more difficult. went out again later in afternoon in just beautiful conditions ! sun,almost no wind and glassy waves. had the reef down from lower all to myself ! even managed to catch a couple of bigger waves ! well,at least bigger than tiny.. fell of the board about a thousand times and probably swalloved a pint of saltwater ! definetily gonna do more SUP before i leave ! it looks like there will be a little wind the next week as well. picture is from Maui southshore

Resting today..

We had some really offshore,kind off strong wind at Hookipa and Kuau today. lowers had no wind. waves around head high. i like to think i normally would have sailed Kuau (looked reasonably stable) but i was just really tired today. i have probably done 2-3 weeks straight. my back tries to tell me that i should have used 1 cm more downhaul in the stormy winds weve had as well.. dont feel too good about not sailing today. the wind forecast is kind of slack for the next week. im predicting maybe one lightwind day on the northshore,and maybe a Kihei day.
The waves are going to get HUGE the next week! i heard something about the potential for these swells to wrap around the island and create waves at Lahaina and Thousands peaks. will check that out. i managed to drag my tired body up to Hookipa and i took some photos. Kai Lenny ended up on the rocks. i was about to put down my camera and go and help him,when i realised he was getting himself sorted and casually waterstarting out from the rocks..

Side Offshore

theres been 4 days in a row now with side off wind. a few of these days the wind have been a little out of control.. the advantages with side off is that i get a lot of speed on the smaller waves at lowers. since its offshore it doesnt create to much chop either and its easy to speed down to hit the next section. i have sailed lowers at the right tide (low) as well. supergood spot to train riding ! scored a fun late afternoon session there today as well. the wind died from gusting 40 to 30 knots around 4 oclock. drove up to Hookipa today and took some photos. Uncle Robbie was the stand out sailor !
the wind is going to die soon and well have back to back monster swells.. well lots of ordinary surfing to be had before i go home i guess !

Crazy winds !

been a few days since the last post. business as usual here with surf and windsurf. we had about three days in a row without wind,but we sailed yeasterday and today. at 9 oclock this morning we had to shut the entrance door to the hostel. stuff attached to the wall was starting to blow down.. sailed Hookipa early owerpowered on my 4.5. there were some waves but the sail started to act like an elephant on steroids (something like that) when i tried to do turns. gave up and drove down to Lowers. superwindy there as well. it was almost impossible for my 90 kgs to hold down a 4.5 ! im guessing the wind was well in exess of 30 knts. sometimes the wind mellows down late afternoon and there were some waves on the reef so i decided to wait it out. fell asleep on the beach for a while. went out again at about 4. still crazy winds,but after half an hour it mellowed a little and turned really side off ! went and checked out the reef and it was superfun ! i was alone there to begin with (most people had given up) and after a while about 5 sailors joined me. sailed sideoff DTL until dark ! Pictures are from Hookipa a few days ago.

Lower Kanaha 19.11.08

we have been sailing the last two days,but its been kind of crap. side on and gusty. didnt have high expectations today, but it turned out to be a fun day windsurfing ! started with a 5.3 and smallish waves. the wind increased to 4.7 and turned side off in the afternoon. got heaps of waves and even tried a couple of backloops. theres more wind and swell coming as well. even the guy who does the forecast for http://www.omaui.com/ is being optimistic ! didnt take any photos today, but im posting a few from Oahu.

Maui sunset Kihei

Came over from Oahu today. was planning on staying a couple more days and check out Kailua/Diamond head, but after staying 4 nights in a Hostel that stinked (literally !) i decided to come over to Maui again. i wouldnt recomend the Backpackers/Plantation village to anyone but the most hardened travelling surfbums.. had to get up superearly today and when i arriwed in Maui i drove up to Hookipa and fell asleep on the beach. when i came to myself i noticed a slight breeze from NE. decided to go over and check out Kihei. it was windy there and i had a nice session on my 5.3. the waves on the Northshore looked really clean today and tommorrow there will be 5.3-4.7 wind..)

Oahu tubes

The swell is still pumping here on Oahus Northshore.surfed a spot i think is called Freddys ? just past Sunset Colony. waves was very mellow compared with the rest of the Northshore ! it has been a little overcast today as well,but the sun has been out occasionally. during a period with nice light i went up to Pipeline beach. walked about 200 yards along the beach south of Pipe and saw some TOTALLY insane surfing. the stuff that goes on here is on another level. some of the peaks are more like (double overhead) shorebreak. they just rise up,create tubes and slam down hard.. one of the photos shows a surfer getting air. i thought he was just kicking out so i didnt hold down the shutterbutton. turns out he did some sort of 360 rotation and landed on the face going down the line..

Oahu Northshore

Left maui for Oahu yeasterday. wanted to see some more of Hawaii. Staying up on the Northshore for a couple of days. might head over to Kailua or Diamond head in the weekend as there is a tradewind forecast. A big swell has hit oahus Northshore and the good guys is out enjoying themselves ! im having a couple of days off after a week with gusty 4.7 and waves on maui. might check out a spot called leftovers tomorrow. sounds like the right spot for a kook like me ! there is a ASP world tour competition on at Haleiwa now just a few miles from here live webcast here http://reef.wetsand.com/ . Pipe also went off today. as you can see from the pictures it went from sunny to overcast today.

Maui Southshore & Northshore 10.08.08

There was a forecast for a southswell today. according to one of the local forecast sites it was a minor to moderate edgepass.that means epic.. they really underestimate the swell here sometimes ! saw a nice small break last time La Perouse was firing so i decided to go down there with my surfboard. took some pictures at La perouse and went and checked out the spot. it was a lot more crowded than last time and a bit blown out. decided to drive back to the Kanaha for some more twin fin testing. the swell was a little bit bigger today with side off 4.7.. got a couple of bigger waves and the Tabou twin 85 worked well on those as well.apparently its the same shape as the single fin so i will try that one out as well. it might plane earlier ? Had a afternoon fotoshoot at Ho before i went surfing at Paia bay. sunset,turtles,fullmoon,beatiful girls,just boardies......) Oh yeah,more waves and wind tommorrow !

Twin Fin !

Decided i wanted to test a twin fin today. went to the kanaha Kah Maui shop and picked up a 85 l Tabou twin 09 (i sail the 85l 06)heres a rewiew !
On the beach : the graphics are kind of bad.. what happened to the naked ladies that used to be on the tabou boards ? it felt kind of heavy. think my previous Tabou 85s have been a tad lighter (it was wet)
On the water : it felt really floaty off the plane. it was also much easier to do non planing jibes on it. might have more than 85liters or different volume distribution compared to my 06. it was a bit slow to plane and had slow acceleration.once up and going it was fast and had a nice loose feeling in the water without being nervous. chop hops seemed easy. jibed well. sailed lowers with a small swell and 4.7. slightly offshore. the waves would jack up nicely on the shallow inside area of the reef,but they were never bigger than chest i think. the board really exelled on the wave face in these conditions ! keeping speed was a lot easier than with my 06 (the nice wind direction and strenght might have helped) the board had a really nice "snappy" turn radius and felt super nice both in the bottom and top turn. sometimes had to pump to reach the next section of the wave and the board was super responsive to this. i have a suspicion that the boards incredible nice turning capabilities on smaller waves is a trade off with control in bigger conditions. luckily we have a bigger swell tomorrow so i can do more testing. Perfect ! if this board is as nice in bigger conditions its a good candidate to replace my tired 06. The pics is from Hookipa today