Maui - part 2

New Swell


After the original swell we had scored in the first week had died down I wasn't expecting much more in terms of quality. Luckily we were suprised with a decent North swell coming into Hookipa up to logo high - about 4ft or so in surfing terms or 3m faces for non-surfers. Unfortunately for me it was ridiculously windy! Being a light weight I don't really like it when the wind is much over 30 knots. I was so overpowered I could barely sail in a straight line - let alone bottom turn! Joel and James on the other hand were loving it. The waves were pretty punchy due to the low tide and I had a few run ins with the reef, scraping my arm along the bottom. James also managed to find the mother of all sea urchins making his foot look even more like a pincushion. Later in the afternoon the wind backed down a bit as I had hoped so I was finally able to get out and get some rides. The crowds had back off as well which was a bonus, it was only me, Francisco Goya and about three others on the water all trading some decent waves.

Tweaked tabletop


The new swell was short lived, by the next afternoon we were back to mucking around on the small windswell. This was easily enough for some sick jumping conditions allowing me to practise my involuntary double pushloops! At the start of the trip we had all set specific moves we wanted to work on, mine was the pushloop with tabletop forwards coming in second. I had been having trouble slowing pushys down, usually ending up going way too fast and coming down hard after going into a second rotation. Although hilarious, they were pretty painful... We only managed to get one of the smaller ones on film.

Practising the Polakow tweak


On a windless morning Phil dragged me out bed for a trip to the cannery where Goya and Quatro were based out of. Due to a lack of research we actually had no idea where to go so ended up driving around the hills of Haiku for over an hour before finally giving up as the wind began to crank. The next day armed with the info we needed courtesy of Google maps we hit the road. When we arrived the guys were super helpful, Francisco, Pascal and Keith answered all our questions about the latest shapes and multi finned boards. Pascal even took us for a tour behind the scenes which was pretty cool, showing us the process that Keith goes through to ultimately end up building a sick board.

Sprecks forward


As the last week of the trip drew nearer the pressure was on. We all wanted to pull off our new moves and get enough video footage to make a decent movie of the trip. It was decided that everyone had to pick a move for someone else to land, Phil's was a decent stalled forward, Joel's a massive cheese roll, James' a tweaked pushy and mine - a tabletop forward. After the first day of this strategy no one actually pulled off their move, we all just ended up smashing ourselves. I was pretty motivated to nail a tabletop forward though so I ditched pushys and decided to focus solely on my new goal. A few days later I pulled one off at Kanaha totally dry. Bit of bummer that no one got it on film but I was still stoked.

Rockpools


On one of our last days a few of our friends took us to some rock pools around the corner from Jaws. It was a pretty sketchy walk down the cliff face - at one point we nearly lost Joel haha. The pools were pretty amazing with a little cave, lots of fish and urchins as well... You had to be careful where you sat! We also found a few hermit crabs and started a bit of a battle. My crab kicked ass until a fish tried to eat it.

It seemed like much too soon as the trip came to an end. It was hard to believe we had spent so much time away. The memories of all the days blurred together, the mediocre sessions were forgotten and only the sickest moves and the best crashes stood out. On the last day we were treated with nuking wind. Powered up on my 3.6 I wanted to make the most of the warm water and sunshine. Joel chased me around for about half an hour with the GoPro camera to amp me up for a double forward attempt but the ramps just never materialised...

Stalled forward



Later we got home and got packed before going for dinner at the Paia fish market. Our flight was leaving at 6am which meant we had to wake up at 4am. The thought of sitting on a plane for a whole day wide awake was not very appealing so I stayed up all night editing the video footage. After an hour and a half of sleep I had to get up again and get to the airport. Negotiating with the check-in chick about excess baggage when you are that sleep deprived is not much fun, especially when they didn't even accept my travellers card or cash to pay for it!! Luckily Phil saved the day and I was able to make it onto the flight. Thanks Phil! As soon as I got in my chair I was pretty much comatose. The sleep deprivation worked a treat. I woke up again to drag my luggage to the international terminal at Honolulu airport and then got back to sleep as we took off for Sydney. It didn't seem like too much longer and we were descending back into Australia. Time flies when you are that tired. After clearing customs without any dramas we had to drag our bags across another airport... At the Qantas transfer desk we had the biggest legend ever so got us all on an eariler flight so we didn't have to wait another 4 hours to get home to Melbourne.

Arriving back in Victoria it was pretty cold! The forecast was looking windless but with some decent waves for the next few days so it looked like even though I wasn't in Hawaii, I would still be in the water. You can't ask for much more than that.