The light but sailable wind pattern continues here on Maui. The overall set up for trade winds is pretty weak which led to really light winds up until mid- to late-afternoon on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday, those with the patience to hang around the beach all day until the later afternoon were rewarded with a late session. Winds were in the mid-teens or less all afternoon up until 2:15 when I decided it wasn’t going to happen and gave up checking to go do other things. I had been getting reports from Karen who was down at Kanaha doing a lesson that the wind was light and “wacky.” With gray skies and a poor forecast it seemed unlikely the wind would come up. You can probably already guess what happened.
Around 4:00 I decided to check the graphs again, and was astounded to see average wind readings of around 22 mph! WTF! How’d that happen? What a mockery! I considered heading down to find Karen, who was now shopping in Costco, to get the van of gear and try to salvage a late session. But the presidential debate was raging, or rather, simmering, and I didn’t really trust the wind to stay up so I stayed put and watched McCain and Obama verbally spar.
I was pretty frustrated and bummed until I talked to Jazz later in the evening and got the report from him. I’d seen a few Gaastra sails out at Uppers on the MauiWindCam and suspected Jazz was one of them, along with Matt K. and “Beach Liaison” Rebecca G. Jazz had opted out of Hookipa because the wind was too light there and the surfers were dominating the break. Jazz gave me the report that I really didn’t miss much – pretty up and down and only intermittent waves. I thought he was just trying to make me feel better, but he assured me that it really wasn’t worth getting bummed about missing it.
Forecast for yesterday was for even lighter winds, but after Friday’s mocking wind, I kept a closer eye on the graph and cameras. Sure enough, the wind beat the predictions again. By 1:30 it was averaging 20 or 21. No delaying yesterday. We immediately rallied and headed to Kanaha. Of course, it turns out the wind had dropped a notch by the time we got there, but it was still windy enough for 5.7/95 liter and it looked like there might be some tiny waves still at Uppers.
The 5.7 was mostly powered up. The gusts were pretty strong, but the holes were pretty light. Took a few reaches to make it up to the one little section at Uppers that was breaking, a small section about 50 yards long where small, crumbly waist- to chest-high surf was breaking. On one reach out from the inside I counted 30 – 40 people vying for that little section of break. Lowers wasn’t breaking at all so Uppers had to absorb the masses that would normally be down there. Lots of people competing for the drop, lots of people down in the water, lots of people trying to launch air, all in a small little area. After one or two waves where I had to dodge guys in the water, plus dodge guys heading out and share the wave with several people, I decided the conditions really weren’t anything to get excited about and not worth it, so I opted to head elsewhere to look for something fun. Crowded waves seem to bother me more than a lot of people so, if it’s not really epic surf, I don’t feel like it’s worth it to add myself into the already crowded mix. About this time the wind decided to drop a notch so elsewhere ended up being back down wind to the launch.
Today, the winds really did get lighter. Forecast was for single digit wind speeds. The best it was able to do today was onshore winds in the low-teens for a bit, before backing off into the single digits again. From what I can tell, it looks like the wind should be about the same tomorrow as today and Tuesday should be a transition day back to stronger winds, though it still looks like we’ll be using the big sails in our quivers. Around Tuesday – Wednesday it’s also looking like we should get the biggest north swell yet of this new season. Surf reports are calling for a “moderate” sized swell, but below advisory level. My translation on that is we should see something in the mast high range at Hookipa, slightly smaller at Uppers and maybe head- to logo-high at Lowers. With the possibility of light winds still on Tuesday, I’m guessing the surfers will be bogarting the break at Hookipa. Hopefully we won’t see a repeat of last year’s ugliness and hostility between surfers and windsurfers that started out the season there.
