I thought yesterday was as good as it was going to get. today was just as good, though for different reasons.
I got a later start–business call in the morning, and it kind of slowed me down for the morning. By the time I rolled out it was 9:30 so I didn’t get into the water until 10:00. I expected the wind to be up, but there was NONE, so I paddled out to lower Kanaha. There were a bunch of other stand up surfers there, most of them I’ve met. The waves were amazing–big oily rollers that looked like clear lenses until they stood up a bit. I had my polaroid sunglasses and ball cap on, so I could see to the bottom clearly.
Mostly the faces were about chest high, with the occasional overhead. Nice sizes and clean waves. I caught a few, and while I was paddling out I saw a long dark object moving in the water about a hundred yards past the reef. I figured it for a whale, so I paddled out. When I got there I found a huge school of large fish–each over a foot long, and colored kind of greenish orange, that had their mouths up on the surface. Looked like they were sucking algae or something. they spooked down under the surface but stayed close, even when other standup surfers came out to see.
They looked pretty tasty, but I don’t know what they were. Couldn’t find them in my “Hawaiian Fishes” book.
I decided to do another “upwind” (actually no wind) paddle, so I headed towards Spreklesville. This time I got almost all the way to Baldwin Beach before I turned around. Baldwin looks like a mess of reefs from the outside, and the wind started picking up. I decided to drive back to Kanaha on the far outside, so I paddled out past the reefs and breakers. turns out you have to go way out if you’re not going to be in the middle of some pretty big waves. Some of the faces were double overhead or more. I felt kind of small and lonely out there. I did find the biggest sea turtle I’ve ever seen by a long shot, and I’ve seen hundreds of them diving. this thing looked like a Buick. I imagine other Maui readers of this blog must have seen this guy (or gal) before. He was too big not to be known.
I bet he has a name, like that 20 foot tiger shark that people see from time to time on the outer reef of Mama’s that kitesurfers have named “God”. Easy to see where that name came from “I saw God today when I was surfing outer Mama’s”
Made it back to Kanaha, had lunch with Diane at Milagros in Paia, and we both went back to Kanaha. the wind came up so I did a long paddle into the wind to burn off the Ono Fajitas and the Kona Big Wave.
We stopped off at Hot Sails Maui to order a sail for my mainland trip this summer (www.allaluminumtour.com). I want to do both standup paddling and longboard sailing so I can stay in some kind of shape. I figure we’ll stop at every lake, pond, river, creek or ocean and I’ll get some paddle time in. A lot of this trip (four months) is going to be in the middle of america, home of seriously fattening food, so I’m going to need all the help I can get.
Anyway, I ordered an 8.0 SuperFreak with the really cool Japanese Tsunami Wave wood block style graphic that Jeff Henderson had on one of his sails. Diane picked the colors, and did a wonderful job. I’m really glad she took the time to come and help me out. I would have wound up with something fairly lame. I’ll post a drawing of the sail as soon as I get it from the guys at Hot Sails.
I’m going to try to get one of the new Starboard stand up paddle/sailing boards for this trip if the stars align and they are ready in time. Jeff told me one of them is a 12′ 3 or 4 and 30 inches wide. Should be right for me.
