This week has blessed us with very light Kona winds, causing glassy perfect conditions for the entire island. The windward side has been getting a good overhead swell that has wrapped around to Diamond Head and a few other south shore spots…gracing them with great conditions.
All day today and yesterday Diamond Head was picture perfect and judging by the Kona winds outlook for the week, it will continue to be for the next few days.
Tom Stokes of Hawaii Surf Session Report got some excellent video footage of the south swell. Enjoy!
Today marks the first day of the peaking swell, so I got up early and stopped by several breaks along the south shore and snapped a few shots. Overhead sets were rolling in every 5-10 minutes, and people were getting barreled all over the place.
This morning was nothing short of epic conditions. Paddled out at Tongs, then over to Rice Bowl, then to Old Mans. All 3 were going off. Glassy overhead barrels everywhere. Rice Bowl was the cleanest.
Occasional double overhead cleaner sets where coming through every half hour or so. Watch out for those!
I took some more pics at DiamondHead. Will post soon.
Yesterday the swell was still pounding the south shore, though not quite as strong as on Wed. The tradewinds picked upto 10-15 mph so it was not nearly as clean either.
I paddled out at Old Mans, and while I thought the swell was big enough for the funboard, I was wrong. The waves break really (really) thick there even with overhead waves. The longboarders were having a blast though.
Afterwords I swung by Diamondhead Cliffs and snapped a picture of the choppy/crappy waves that were breaking there:
Forecast
Today looks like the swell has tapered off to 2-5′ faces, and the wind has picked up even more. Tomorrow a new swell arrives which will bring us 7′+ faces once again, though the trades are predected to be in the 10-25 mph range, it should still be good fun!
A big south swell has arrived along with the heat of the summer. Current conditions are glassy 4-7+ foot faces and 18 second periods. It doesn’t get much better than this on the south shore.
From the looks of the forecast, the swell will be sticking around for the next few days.
This morning I paddled out at Tongs (next to old man’s) and had a blast. The waves were doubleing up a bit as they normally do there, but looking up and down the shore a few of the nearby breaks were just beautiful.
Stay tuned for some pictures and more surf reports as the week goes on!
Signs of summer south swells are here. There is a solid head-high swell pounding the south shore right now, and looks like it will get even bigger tomorrow. With very light winds, the conditions are glassy epicness.
Both yesterday morning and this morning I paddled out at Flies. There were only a few people out and the conditions perfect. There were some lulls between sets, as there normally are at Flies, but looking over at Kewalos and Panics, it was very consistant.
It’s a great week to grab your board and hit the water!
Just a day after I created what is probably the worst surf video ever made (gotta start somewhere right?), I stumbled across the most amazing piece of surf footage I’ve ever seen in my existence. There is a film crew at pipeline over the next week or two with the best state-of-the-art HD video equipment known to man, getting unreal footage of Jamie O’Brien, a well known pipeline surfer who is taking surfing to new levels.
Smugmug has sponsored Vincent Laforet and his company to get this footage and post the results using Smugmug’s excellent online HD video capabilities.
The first clip they came out with is of Jame O’Brien taking a monster back door wave, then switching his stance while in the tube. Never before have you seen such crisp quality in a surf video, and it really gives you a feel for how critical this wave is.
Be sure to watch the full HD version of this video!
Yesterday I headed over to one of my favorite surf spots on the south shore, Sand Island beach park. The swell was too small for the regular break to be working, which is the one straight out from the watch tower. Since it was high tide, the right that forms off of the super shallow reef was working perfectly. The wave was breaking chest to head high, fast and super hollow on 2-3′ of water over the sharp reef.
There was a very rare north wind, which gave a perfect on-shore breeze that held the wave up enough to get long rides around the edge of the reef. All in all it was a ton of fun and since there was only 2 of us out there, the waves were plentiful.
After a while the guy on the stand-up paddle board pointed right next to me and started yelling “shark!, shark!”. Apparently he saw the shark swim right by me and its dorsal fin sick out of the water. Needless to say I pretty much high tailed it back to shore. That’s twice now people around me have spotted a shark, and I have yet to see one with my own eyes. I must not look very tasty.
Today I went to Bellows Beach in Waimanalo to BBQ with some friends, and it was super windy there. There was a nice big shore break coming in from all the wind though which was fun to get thrown around in on my body board.
Tomorrow I might head to the north shore, a new swell should arrive over night and bring 6-10′ faces.