There was a monk seal chilling on the beach this afternoon. It was hogging up the launch area...
The west wind was still blowing strong this afternoon so I was out rigging up my gear at 3pm. The tide was pretty low so I had to paddle my gear out pretty far before I could flip the foil over. The waves were decent sized on the inside - enough to make paddling pretty tough.
Eventually I got to deeper water and rode out on my knees to the wind line and from that point I had plenty of wind. The softer sunlight was making it hard to see what was a wave and what was flat water - or I'm getting old and just can't see. And there was a lot of chop in the water so I had to really move around a lot to keep balanced (oh - and my front foil was a little loose - so that's what I get for not tightening down everything before hitting the water - I was feeling the wiggle the whole time - I bet my riding would have been much cleaner if I had tightened the bolts).
For all the challenges to get out - it was totally worth it - the waves were really fun and every 15 minutes or so, a bomber set would roll through - head and a half high!!!! And it is the middle of December!!!!
Luffing was so easy on these big waves - if westerlies were the norm at WPB...
On one monster wave, I jibed right under the standing peak, made the drop and was getting out in front of it - well it caught up to me and I wiped out. The board ended up on top of the wing and I was tangled up in both leashes. I cleared the wing and then untangled the board leash. During the wipe, one of the winglets grazed my right tricep - I picked up another cool scar!!!
The Reedin SW2 is a really well built wing - there were multiple times over the past few days where most other wings would have picked up some kind of damage - collisions with the board and the foils. That or I got lucky.
After Monday, I didn't entirely trust the wind. I kept my eye to the west making sure the wind was barreling in. For the most part it was - but then the opposite occurred. At around 4:30pm I could see a squall line setting up in front of a band of showers - I had enough time for two more runs and then I beat feet for the landing. By the time I hit the beach, the rain was coming down and the wind dropped off. Roland didn't see what I was doing and got stuck outside for a bit. Eventually the wind did fill back in but not as strong as before the last squall.
Got in 14.73 miles this session - I think if I check the front foil screws I would have gotten more miles in and gone faster. You can see the wind was pretty much straight west.
This chart was from Hickam - I think we had it just a hair stronger (but the Kalaeloa meter is inland at the airfield, so it doesn't reflect the wind over the water).
Honestly with the waves as big as they were, I'm not sure if I would have wanted to go faster today - besides the wobbles, this was a perfect session!
I love this place!
W:127/F:99/S:42
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