After a few days hiatus, the wind came back to Maui yesterday. The first half of the week we saw pretty light winds, so light in fact that I doubt anyone got much planing time in anywhere, even Kihei unless they had ginormous gear.
But high pressure began to once again dominate our weather yesterday and sailable winds returned. I hit up Kanaha for a couple of hours on 5.7 and 95 liters. Slogged for first hour, then wind came up enough to get up to the small mushy waves at Uppers. Some fun rides to be had, that made the first hour of slogging worth it.
Trade winds came back to normal speeds today. 5.0 was the call at Uppers again in the early afternoon. Waves were a bit mushy and unorganized in my opinion, and I just couldn’t seem to catch any nice rides today. Peter Thommen was scoring all the good rides today – always managing to find the better wave, either the one in front of me or behind me or just upwind of me. There were a few nice shoulder high waves to be had, I just didn’t seem to have it dialed today.
Winds will stick around for several days and we have yet another big north swell heading our way. According to the Hawaiian Surf Forecast:
Surf along north facing shores will be 6 to 10 feet with occasional larger sets this afternoon, then build to 14 to 18 feet overnight through Friday.
This swell has a lot of western component to it, which in my opinion isn’t optimal for Kanaha. Hookipa should get it better.
I want to give a shout out to Maui Windsurfing’s latest sponsor, OES Australia. Check ‘em out! I’ll be hooking up with them some time in the next few days to get a tour of their shop in the infamous Pauwela Cannery – windsurfing’s R&D central.
