maui monday
by Graham
So here is the first ever maui monday report with the latest news from Maui! Unfortunately, this week on the rock has been rather uneventful. Summer on Maui most often means flat water. It gets so bad in July that we are lucky to get anything over knee high. August, though, is the month when the swells start to return. August is far from good but definitely getting better.
Well, that process of returning swells hasn’t started yet; Maui is still in a very severe wave drought. Further, the summer is normally really windy, so last week’s few windless days were rather abnormal. BUT they came as a relief to me, for I fell ill with a small head cold and thus spent the days indoors reading and watching movies (to name a few: The Social Network, Rare Exports, Your Highness, The Name of the Rose, Crimes and Misdemeanors). After the wind returned for the weekend, I did miss a few windy, waveless days because I didn’t feel well.
Though, at the start of the week– right after getting back from Baja–I did get to sail a couple days. And on those flat days, I worked on some fun freestyle like pirouette jibes. Also, my starboard tack back loops look pretty bad, so I’m trying to spice some style into them by throwing my head back at the apex of the rotation. However, because the waves are so small, there are really only about 5 opportunities to jump in a session, so it’s not so much training as it is just messing around.
Summer on Maui means no Pros. This is both good and bad. Good because there are fewer people on the water competing for all the waves and jumps. But bad because having other pros on the water is really fun and good for pushing oneself.
It seems that the wind is back in the normal trade wind pattern for this coming week and I can’t wait to go do some more jumps! Jumping is a bit of a sore subject with hardcore waveriders. Some say that it is not a part of true windSURFING and refuse to acknowledge jumping’s legitimacy. I call BS. True, if the waves are good, I prefer not to jump even if there is good wind for it. But that’s not because I think of jumping as not counting, but rather I just have so much fun riding waves that I don’t even think about jumping. That said, I do think it’s important for wavesailors to work on their jumps. So that’s the goal until the real waves come this fall– when that happens, I’ll only be riding them, not jumping.
Here are some photos that Jimmie Hepp captured from last week. You’ll see that despite the lack of Pros, there is no such lack of tourists.
