Been slacking in the windsurfing reports again – sorry about that, been busy. After a couple of days of gray, rainy and/or light winds on Thursday and Friday, trade winds returned enough on Saturday for the 3rd annual Maui Butterfly Effect to run. From what I hear it was a great success. Check out Tatiana Howard’s blog for report and lots of photos.
Easter Sunday brought much stronger winds, fun waves and some cool aquatic life along the north shore. I got there early since holidays bring out the crowds and there was a bit of a forecast swell. I hit the water shortly after the 11:00 starting bell on 5.0 and headed out through the gap between Lowers and Uppers just below the Weird Wave. About 100 meters past Weird Wave I saw something huge roll out of the water about another 100 meters ahead and slightly upwind of me. “Holy Crap! That was huge!” I thought (I might have even said it out loud). My first thought was big tiger shark, so I headed off the wind a bit to try to get away. Then I realized I hadn’t seen any dorsal fin so next I thought manta ray. All this went through me head in about 2 or 3 seconds and then I saw it again – this time only about 20 meters upwind and just ahead of me. It was obvious now, adult humpback whale and calf side by side rolling along the surface. Cool! I sailed a little further, looking back to see their exhalations blow downwind where I just was, glad I wasn’t downwind of that to find out what whale breath smells like.
I jibed and spotted them further upwind, cruising up the coast, keeping an eye on them to make sure I wasn’t too close when all of a sudden I spotted a couple of dorsal fins come out of the water just outside the break just upwind of Weird Wave. Sharks?! Yikes! Since when to sharks travel in pairs so closely together like that? Then I spotted a half dozen more dorsal fins and watched as the pod of dolphins they were attached to rolled out of the water. They were headed down wind and I was close enough that I was a little worried about going directly through the pod if it were bigger. Whales and dolphins, all in my first reach out and back. How cool is that! It was so cool I thought even if I didn’t get any waves at all today, it was already a killer session.
As it turns out, the waves were pretty fun too and I was out early enough to score a bunch of them without many others to compete with. Lots of head- to logo-high sets, a bit intermittent at times, but good fun when timed right. Talked to T1 afterwards and he encountered some even bigger mast-high sets further upwind at Camp One. All in all, a fantastic day of windsurfing.
Didn’t sail yesterday, but heard from big Matt K. that 4.7 was the call for him at Uppers for the afternoon sesh and that there were still some waves though not as good for down the line – only one or two hits per wave.
I light workload for me in the morning meant another early session for me today. On the water at 11:00 with 4.5. Two reaches proved that that was too much so I came in for a 4.2 and smaller board. Much better. The 4.2 was perfect for the next hour. Waves were mostly like summer time wind swell, backside riding and maybe one down the line hit occasionally, between backside hits. Some fun open ocean rollers on the outside too. Photo shoot season continued with a bunch of Team Gaastra/Vandal and Tabou out at Kanaha with helicopter shooting 2010 Gaastras, Tabous and Vandals.
Looks like we get another day of wind tomorrow before the trades go away for a bit. Thursday might be marginally sailable on big gear, but after that it looks pretty light through early next week.
