Finally Powered
The long overdue and much anticipated return of some decent strength trade winds finally took place on Thursday. Before that I can’t remember how long it had been since I’d been properly powered up.
Strong winds were supposed to return on Wednesday and I suppose if you count Kihei then they did. Kanaha was again super light. I considered going to Kihei but I was holding out for the wind to pick up at Kanaha. Went to Kanaha in the early afternoon to check it out. Several dozen sailors out on the water slogging around. More of us on the beach whining about how light it was. Finally gave it up for a Costco session.
Thursday turned out to be the day. Average wind speeds reading in the low 20s in the late morning. On arrival, the wind looked pretty strong on the outside but it was pretty offshore and light inside at Kanaha. Some pretty big surf too. There wasn’t any high surf advisory posted but just standing at the launch at Uppers and seeing the channel between Weird Wave and Lowers close out plus the outer reef breaking at Uppers, it was obvious that there were mast high+ sets at Uppers. I wanted to rig 5.0, but when the surf is big I tend to rig a size bigger to compensate for the extra current so that I can make it up to Uppers easier.
Turns out the 5.3 was a good call in that respect. Though I slogged all the way to the reef, once at the wind line the 5.3 was super powered up. Had to go out through the channel below Weird Wave and it took a reach or two to make it up to Uppers.
The conditions can best be described as gnarly – super windy and gusty on the top of the swells outside, super light in the troughs and in the break and a bit bumpy. Big waves forming on the outer reef, lots of the Uppers double-up-wave action going on (for some reason at Uppers the waves will sometimes double up, a nice set wave forming, you start positioning to get on it and another mast high wave starts forming up 30 feet behind it so you end up in this really narrow corridor between two big waves. Limits what you can do and it’s a pretty sketchy situation).
Anyway, it felt good to get out and gets some turns in despite the bumpy, gusty conditions. Lots of Hookipa regulars showed up for the afternoon session – guess Hookipa was pretty junky.
The return of wind was short-lived. We’re back in a super light wind mode again, and it looks like the next chance for decent wind is next Wednesday -though I won’t get my hopes up to high for that yet.
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