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Session No.: 32
Another day at Hanalei, about the same size as it was on Saturday. It bumped up just enough
to be more rideable than yesterday, Hawaiian 224 foot or so, waist to head high on occasion.
I changed my routine around based around the weather pattern - which is much like the west
coast, glassy and calm a.m. till about 11 a.m., then after that time it gets not blown out,
but the east trades come along and texture up the surface. And with the surf in the small
range (for Hawaii, anyway), it was important to get to it early before the wind got on it.
It was the first real adjustment I made on this trip so far - it paid off.
I surfed for three solid hours today from about 930 am to about 1230 p.m. and then those
trades came up just as I was leaving the water and downgraded the waves big time. So getting
here a couple hours earlier than I normally would have paid off. On the off day yesterday
I was watching conditions and the watch to check it out, and the switch to early morning,
glassy conditions when it is small scale surf is the only way to go, bro.
While I'm left unimpressed with the surf so far, it has had its moments of fun. Plus you can
see how the bay lines up, and maybe like I've been saying, the place must become a cauldron
of breaking wave and shallow reef when the size comes up. And that's what the surf is supposed
to do, everyone was talking about it in the water. How it's supposed to turn on mid-day
Tuesday, be well overhead by Tues evening, and up to triple overhead on Wednesday, then backing down
to head high plus Thursday and fading more on Friday, when I leave. I'll be able to squeeze in a surf
on Friday before my flight home at 2 p.m. I hope.
Okay, what about today. I tried out the vest today, which worked pretty well. Only problem is that
I missed some spots under the shoulder with the sunblock and fried the tops of my shoulders around
the back where your arms go through the sleeveless vest. Didn't realize it until about two hours
into the session, nothing I could do about it. I was covered with a UV hat that JADE loaned me,
otherwise I would have been using my own UV hat that MARK failed to return to me after his trip
to INDO in OCTOBER. I was glad to have the hat. Why is it that people make remarks about equipment
and protective gear so much? This one guy flapped about me wearing a hat in the lineup - when at least
three other guys were also doing the same thing. All I had on was (no reef walkers), boardies, sleeveless
vest and the hat for crying out loud. Maybe everyone should be like the terminators and just go
naked through time on every wave.
I was sitting on the same part of the reef as I was on Saturday. It started out with about 30 guys
in the water, but it thinned out as the session went on. Just me and a couple of locals sitting
way up the reef toward the hotel and taking off and taking chances on making a section and connecting
or having to basically straighten out because the smallish waves closed out on shallow sections in front
of us. I caught three really fun rides to start out with, including having the pleasure of staying really
really high up on a line and cranking down the line on the Rocket, projecting about 20 yards at a time
and made my first "bay wave" connecting from the outside, past all the damn longboards and SUPs at
the first point.
A local guy paddled out on a banana yellow longboard and proceeded, however, to ruin the session for me,
as far as I was concerned. He didn't do it on purpose to me per se, but it was just poor manners. We were
out before him, you know, easily by an hour. Then he paddles out and starts stuffing everyone on every
decent set wave that came through. Classic. He paddles out. He takes the best first wave that comes in.
There's just enough time between sets for him to get back out. Then he takes off on the best wave of the
next set, the next set, the next set. Then I paddle around him out the back for the best wave of the
day for me after watching this for an hour, and he drops in me, smokes me, looks back, sees I'm staying right
on his ass with both engines on the Rocket firing, then 75 yards later pulls out. It was kinda de
bullsheet you know, bruddah? Wat up wit dat? You can give won wave no?
So I get maybe 20 extra yards out of what would have been a great head high wave alone, paddle back out,
and Banana Boat says, "Was that you? I had to take it to make sure you were going to catch it." That's one
of the oldest excuses in the book. Everyone else was being cool and taking turns sort of but Banana Boat
just kept going. I got turned off and didn't want to deal with it and caught a closeout and paddled back
to the first point and just hung a bit outside the SUPs and longboarders. It was an infestation
to be sure. Us shortboarders have been severely outnumbered. I'm scared to think about that come Tuesday
afternoon and Wednesday and Thursday, when everyone is saying it's going to be like 10 foot or something.
I mean, I have the 8-6, and if it gets that big I'll pull it out. But still, the thought of all these
huge ass boards flying down the line in Hawaiian 10 foot surf is a bit...scary. I might be hanging outside,
or on the first point. Hanalei is the type of wave where a million people can drop in at a million spots
on the wave. And everyone here is really hungry for surf because it's been relatively small for most
of the winter, according to most of de locals hangin in de lot, don chew no.
I'm not apprehensive at all about the size factor, I just think it's going to get really crowded
and the equipment being used is going to predominantly be logs and SUPs. When I was doing a surf
check from a different vantage point a couple of older expat guys came up to me, as we watched
about 10 SUPs already out, if the same thing is happening in California. The answer is definitely
yes, but the islands are way worse fer sure.
I really am looking forward to see what the whole bay and all it's breaks look like when it's going
off with some size. There are two or three different places I'd like to surf here rather than just
the bay, but it's been too small for those places to even break, really.
I"m also having a hard time trying to decide what to do tomorrow. I want to go to the south and west
side, especially to see Waimea Canyon and do some sightseeing, which I think back to now I should have done
today. Apparently the swell is supposed to fill in rapidly tomorrow some time after 12 p.m. The clouds
and rain start coming from the W over to the N and E coasts about 11 a.m, which means getting up really
early, driving about 2 hours, going up to about 4,000 feet, sightseeing, coming back down, finding a
spot to surf over there, then coming home. Then going back to Hanalei on Wednesday, probably to find
surf that's triple or quintupled in size from what I have been in. The conundrom is whether or not to
blow off plans of sightseeing to stay in tune with what is happening with the surf, or to take a chance,
diversify, spread out, put the Rocket in the back, sightsee until about 10 or 11 a.m., then try to find
something and be happy with it on the other side. I'm still tore up about what to do.
I knew I should have put the long sleeve rashguard under the vest. But I was like, well, then people
are going to make fun of you doing that, too. I think I should maybe have brought my Mexican Wrestling
Mask and wore that out. One of these sessions, I'm going to just put on the rashguard, put on the vest,
put on the hat, wear the reef booties, then go out and shred in front of everyone. More protection from getting
shredded over the coral anyway, if I don't end up shredding. I don't think I shred. I think I just catch
waves and surf pretty well.
Well, decisions to make, file to upload. Dont know with the schedule when the next update will be,
if it gets big, I'll try to do another update with some photos, hopefully none with blood
in them. I need some aloe vera.
- Cliff
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