Tuesday 19th April my alarm went off at 5.30am, I had no problem jumping out of bed, time for Hawaii. First though, I jumped on the bike for a couple hours, the best thing before a long haul flight. In no time at all we met the crew at Melbourne Airport – Joel Ryan, Brendan Boxall, Mark Taylor, Spotty, Ted, Joel’s dad Bernie and My dad Tom. Piled up our bags and jumped on the plane. Chasing the moon the day was over before we knew it and new thing we knew we were in Maui! Flying in we noticed that there was a little bit of swell around, but not too much wind. Tired and hungry we picked up our rental vans with only minimal dramas. I felt that it was my responsibility to show the USA virgins some typical American diner style food – First stop IHOP (International House of Pancakes).
Most had never been to such a place - where in Melbourne can you get: an omelet that feeds 3 people + 3 Pancakes + bottomless cup of coffee, all for under $10? No where.
By the time we finished lunch it was about 12.30pm, and in typical Maui style the trade winds had kicked in. All of a sudden these tired and weriery travelers where full of energy and itching to get in the water.
We found our accommodation - Sprecks beach resort. The location could not have been better, views of Sprecks beach, and perfect rigging lawns right in front our accommodations, almost good enough for practicing some putting.
Considering there was a bit of swell and the wind seemed to be up I was very excited to get to Hookipa beach – World famous wave sailing location, (The Mecca of wave sailing)
We were greeted with conditions better than expected, steady cross shore wind and head high waves. We also met up with fellow Aussies, Al McCleod from Melbourne and Ben Newson from Perth.
They had been in town for almost 2 weeks already, experiencing Maui at is best and its worst. Today was the first day in almost a week they had been on the water let alone even seen any waves.
Later that night the final member of our crew, Phil Chalko flew in from Germany.
After getting that all important first sail under our belts it was time for some ‘Good’ local food, so we celebrated our arrival the Paia’s Fish Market restaurant.
The next few days we experienced similar conditions – Small shoulder high waves, and light winds around 15 – 20 knots. Just enough for us to settle back into Starboard tack wavesailing, it had been almost a year since we had had conditions anything like this.
By about day 4 the trade winds really started kicking in, with a couple days getting up to about 30knots. The swell however was almost non existent, but conditions where forecasted to improve.. A little...
There was no shortage of a party either, we met up with local mates from past trips, to Maui and from other windsurfing locations around the world. One particular wild night we found our self’s at Paia’s local bakery / café / night club. Talk about a mix of people – Anyone from Jason Polakow to Owen Wilson was there all having pretty wild time. The night ending with activates ranging from skinny dipping at Paia beach to drunken grand theft auto, just to name a couple.
The following morning it wasn’t windy, and that wasn’t a bad thing, as everyone was feeling a bit delicate and sore from the nights adventures. None more hung over and confused than Ben. (That’s a whole other story though.)
The days ahead were a bit of a surprise, the trusty website windguru was not looking too good. A small swell was suppose to make its way over to Maui from the north and the wind look very light for the next few days. In reality almost the opposite happened. A couple days later the trade winds really started to fire, ripping up a good wind swell combined with a bit of ground swell, making for some epic conditions at Hookipa.
You know it’s a good day when your sharing waves with pros such as Kevin Prichard, Jason Polako, Levi Siver, Keith Taboul, just to name a few, Basically 90% of the worlds top windsurfers were all in the water at one time.
Apart from the conditions being epic the show that the pros were putting on was pretty amazing!
We though we would make the most of the conditions and organized a local mate of ours Frankie from Maui Water shoot to get in the water and take some actions shots of the crew in action – Thanks Frankie I think these shots turned out really well! - http://www.mauiwatershoot.com/
After 4 days of big winds, solid waves and countless hours of time on the water we were all stuffed. I could feel every muscle in my body was swollen and acking. It was a good feeling because I knew I had made the most out of the conditions.
Gradually the trade winds lessened and the swell started to drop, we continued to sail Hookipa milking the last hours out of our trip, know that in a few days I would be back in my office sitting behind a computer.
We did it again, it feels like I squeezed a months worth of sailing and activities into two weeks. Another awesome Maui experience! I cant wait to be back on the island…
No comments:
Post a Comment