I had to clean the garage yesterday–just had to, and I washed the mud off Diane’s Xterra (but not my jeep–mud looks just fine on it). By 2:00 I was ready to hit the water, but we were having dinner with good friends in Wailea–Ed and Diane Lane, so I headed for Cove Park planning to shower there and meet Diane at the park to be at the Lane’s on time. I figured there would be no waves, but I could get in a good paddle.
Sure enough, no waves, so I headed out towards the east, into the wind. The wind was light but the water was choppy and confused, with pretty big short-period rollers coming from the southwest. I saw something out about a mile in the water, and paddled out to take a look. Turned out to be a spearfisherman on a longboard, out for his afternoon cruise. We chatted a while as we bounced around in the swells on our tiny “boats”. I’m sure any tourist that saw us thought we were suicidal, but surfboards are fine craft in heavy seas.
I continued east and made my way to the end of Kehei where the last of the el cheapo hotels/condos gives way to the upscale ones of Wailea, turned around and cruised back, discovering to my dismay that the wave angle made for tough going. I thought the wind would be the big factor and I’d be going back in the downwind direction. I didn’t have that long, so I paddled hard against the waves, figured out a good rhythm, and made it back to cove Park with plenty of time to spare. So I started poking around, looking for little waves.
A group of several whales, including at least one baby, came to the edge of the shallow reef at the Cove, and just hung out. They stayed there until after I left, showing their backs and occasionally breaching in the shallow water. I don’t know how they can get so high out of the water in shallows like that, but they do. the baby was jumping like a porpoise.
Another Standup guy came out, headed for a paddle. I briefly considered going with him, but wasn’t sure of the time. After a while Sol Morey and his wife (sorry, didn’t get her name) paddled out on their boards and started picking up some little rides. Sol had a watch, and I was delighted to find I had at least a half hour before Diane showed up for our dinner engagement.
The waves actually picked up for a while, and the water glassed off, so we had a lot of nice little rides. For some reason my balance was way off, and I kept falling in. I think those little bouncy waves are kind of tricky to stand on. Caught a bunch of nice little rides. I kept trying to turn in the waves and ride the shoulder (what little there was) but the board wouldn’t turn very well. I’m blaming the thrusters I added the other day–they work fine in bigger waves, but I couldn’t swing the nose in the ankle-slappers.
Had a nice chat with Sol while were were surfing and standing around in the chop watching the whales. Good guy, and fun to talk to, but then had to beat feet for dinner with the Lanes.
So good to see those guys. Ed is a superb artist–we have several of his paintings at Ponohouse–and both he and Diane, who designs beautiful painted silk clothing, are extraordinarily interesting to talk to–they do so much with their lives, wonderful to see.
We had dinner at the Marriot hotel. I don’t think I’ve ever been there before, and it’s very pretty. they have a new Mala restaurant there, run by the folks that own Maui tacos–my favorite fish taco joint in Maui. There’s a Mala in Lahaina that Diane and I go to pretty often. Great food, nice location, great service. The new one at the Marriot is equally excellent. We had a great meal and a fine time.
All in all, a surprisingly fine day, especially considering that i spent most of it cleaning my garage.
bill: you are totally living the life, aren’t you?
meanwhile, a thought about the upcoming event. would it make sense, do you think, to offer up some board as a basis of comparison for the testers? iow, if, say, the jimmy11 is the center line for various elements (stability, glide, surfability, etc), then the other boards could be viewed as + or – that centerline. obviously, for this to work, the guy would all have to spend some time on the jimmy but at the very least, if it worked, the idea could spit out some interesting numbers — especially if it worked out that the various element numbers actually fell into meaningful groups instead of all over the damn place. also, it’d make it easy for the guys to complete quick evals — just write in some numbers, maybe an overall impression, and off you go, bob’s your uncle.
anyway, just thought i’d toss that in at the last minute.