Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Wednesday 6 21 17 morning call

Pretty spectacular day of surfing yesterday on the south shore. I first surfed a spot in Lahaina, the whole town had a bad morning sickness on it, but at least it was uncrowded (and still fun) when I hit it. After the session, I took these two shots from the parking lot and they show how much and how quickly it cleaned up. A little unlucky with the timing lately, but it was crowded at that point. Plus, the onshore flow started quite soon after.


A floater on a head high closeout section in front of a feet of water. He free fell in front of it and hopefully didn't hit the reef, but I got the feeling that next time he's gonna kick out instead.

Belly high can be extremely fun if it's perfect like that.

I took this shot from the car on my way to work after the second session in a nearby spot. I got some excellent waves and now I have a new problem: I have two very good 6.2's and I got to pick which one I want to keep and that's the biggest problem I have at the moment. What a life.

This might be one of the very first SUP foiling contests of history. Coming up the 24th and 25th in Waikiki. If Austin Kalama competes and pulls off one of his aerial rotations, I bet he'll take the win.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore

W
3.2ft @ 14s from 135° (SE)

SW
3.9ft @ 14s from 163° (SSE)

SE
4.3ft @ 14s from 165° (SSE)

Pearl Harbor
0.5ft @ 5s from 154° (SSE)

Surfline did add the Pearl Harbor buoy to their list (link n.11), but it evidently needs some tuning as it only shows a tiny windswell reading, while the NOAA page shows 2.3f 14s. Don't worry, I'll email them again. In the meantime, we'll stick to the outer buoys that show still significant energy, but slightly less than yesterday afternoon. As predicted three days ago, the swell peaked during the night, but there's still plenty energy in the ocean and it should be another great day of surfing on the south shore. As usual, check the webcams before going. I'm off today and taking it easy and still home at 5.30am (unacceptable on working days!!), so that's what I'm doing. Lahaina still has solid head high plus sets like the one below.


North shore
Waimea
2ft @ 9s from 329° (NW)

Pauwela
4.9ft @ 8s from 83° (E)

The small NW swell disappeared at the Pauwela buoy, but Waimea indicates that it's still there (at Pauwela it's masked by the strong windswell). Nonetheless, it's a sign that the size is now down a lot and Hookipa at sunset was quite small. And that's how it should be also today.


The wind blew pretty hard yesterday, so I'm gonna officially ditch the other model (that was wrong again). We'll stick to this in the hope that the much superior MC2km will be back online one day. Blog reader Ben left a comment saying that this model "nailed the wind at peaks perfectly this morning 8-11 when we were out". Good job at seeing that (I find it difficult, because of the low res), this is 12pm.


North Pacific offers a weak WNW fetch and the windswell one. The low I marked is going to have the trajectory indicated by the red arrow and move away from us, which is obviously not the best from the wave generation point of view. Nonetheless, it will get stronger (specially tomorrow) and will provide us with a NE swell predicted by Surfline to peak at 5f 11s from 52 degrees on Monday (picking up all day Sunday). This is going to be the last ground swell for a while and I see hints of a strong trades episode for the first days of July. Kinda early to call it official, we'll see.


South Pacific shows a decently oriented moderate southerly fetch. 1.5f 18s early Tuesday morning is the predicted peak. There's also a fetch SW of New Zealand, which I would have not been aware of without the great circles fetches map on the right. I love those maps.


Morning sky looks clear and another stunning day is on its way.

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