surf-matic

Pretty poor conditions at Hookipa in August

The rock has been less than rocking. Think of going to see one of your favorite rock bands live. The opening band shows up late. OK that’s not so bad. But then they turn out to be just some lame high school kids. After their set, you think, “Oh finally here is what I came for!”. You keep waiting and waiting. Nobody comes out for some time, and then the opening band–ya those high school kids– returns to announce that due to bad weather, your favorite rock band can’t make it to the show. Instead of just going home, you stay around to yet another set of shitty songs from the terrible opening band. Yeah, that’s Maui lately.

No waves and flukey wind. At the start of the week, Hookipa had terribly gusty wind that made sailing pointless (see the picture I took from the car). I hate complaining about the windsurfing on Maui because it makes me feel spoiled. Obviously any sailing is better than no sailing. And after all, I have friends who windsurf on lakes in germany with no waves and with wind for only 5 minutes every 20 minutes– forcing you to wait for the gusts of wind so that you can do one or two tricks. I’ve sailed at these places and so I know that Maui is indeed very special and should never ever be taken for granted. But that said, this last week was pretty bad, especially with expecting what Maui normally delivers.

However, I was not going to let the wind go to waste, so I sailed pretty much every day at Kanaha, trying to learn freestyle on my wave board. My goal is to get my air flakes perfect (I can get some over 1.5m high on flat water) and also to get a decent shaka (a trick that really eludes me).

After a certain point, I had had enough freestyle. So on Thursday I took my best friend windsurfing for the first time in his life. I got a learners board from Hawaiian Island Surf and Sport and a 3.3 from my dad’s loft. Boy, windsurfing is hard! But for a smart, athletic 22 year old, the sport is not too hard. By the end of the day, my buddy was sailing back and forth perfectly. My goal for him is to be jumping and starting to ride waves in the next 2 weeks.

I love windsurfing!

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