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New Year Eve Swell: from Kanaha to Jaws!
Two typical Maui surfboards: A Jaws gun and a Kanaha long board.
Maui has such a variety of surf. From one foot perfect beginner waves to the biggest surfable waves on the planet. Here is my late experiences of waves quite near both these two extreme point:
Lower Kanaha
Whatever you might think, I’m a total kook when it comes to surfing. At my local spot on Swedish east coast, I’m usually on a really fat and wide 6’4 fish, and I’m at most average in this not that hi skilled line up. Having fun like hell, but still not that much to brag about. 5-6 years ago I decided to try to learn how to surf smaller boards. Before that I usually was on a 9′ longboard on which I actually could compete for waves on my favorite Maui spots. Now, my to go board over here is a 7’2. I could easily be on a much smaller board, but the competition for waves is pretty fierce, and to get waves, I need some extra paddle power to get in early.Of different reasons I ended up surfing a Gordon Smith 9′ longboard a couple of days in a row on really slow, but clean and large open face wave named Lowers at Kanaha. This spot is usually packed with everything from minimals to 10′ nose riders, and stand up surfboards. On the larger days the crowd changes and more narrow step up boards show up, as well as a lot of longboard and standup surfers goes to other spots.
My current Kanaha weapon
It’s been a few years since I surfed longboards in decent sized waves, I had forgotten both how easy it is to catch waves really early, as well as how to turn them when trying to surf more vertical. But most of all, I had forgotten how fun it is.
Second day out there on the 9′ was one of the most funny surf I have ever had. Perfect mid sized/large and super clean Kanaha with relatively fast lefts and long but slow rights. I sat at the peak together with two other long board surfers and we took of on the best waves in every set. The other guys really knew how to put a long board on rail and made beautiful carving turns on the large open faces. I got super inspired ant tried to do the same. Slowly the line up started to get crowded when after workers started to show up. But by then I had already sort of established myself as one of the guys taking of on the best ones – the crowd just did not bother me. After about 3 hours of surfing in perfect long board bigger wave conditions I started to loose strength and focus. I sat a little to deep and had to go right a couple of waves and just did not continue do my thing. Just as I decided to paddle back in to shore, Christopher, a friend from Sweden, or rather from earlier Maui stays, showed up on a stand up. With fresh energy he tock of of some really good waves. I hanged around and got a few more, then we both paddled back, with big smiles on our faces, to the beach and his wife Cecilia and family gave me a lift back home. What a day!
Peahi/Jaws
The day described at Kanaha above was day before a really nice day at Jaws. The swell was north-west and producing much bigger waves the further east on Maui north shore they hit. Thats why it was about 4-5 feet at Kanaha and 15-20 at Jaws. New Years Eve was the latest day Jaws was really good. The tow-in thing seems to have died off completely and the shapers have a hard time to build enough 10’6 Jaws super guns. These boards look soooooo impressive. The very opposite to all the short and stubby boards that are so much in vouge pretty much everywhere, maybe except on the Hawaiian island.What a beautiful tail!
The forecast did not promise any extreme big waves on a Jaws scale, but it did promise solid 15-20 foot waves and very light wind – perfect for paddling in. We did not drive all the way down due to some tourists advising us not to. That was totally wrong, Red Bull has put a lot of money to fix the dirt road down. It has never been better and if it hasn’t rained a lot, any car can take you down there easily, as well as up. The kids got a ride on a pick up, I enjoyed the walk, making my surfed out body warm and hopefully a little bit more soft, without any real effort. People with big guns everywhere. A lot of locals in all ages, but also some both big and small names had come over from Oahu.
Big guns everywhere
The conditions was magnificent. The line up super crowded. The spectators excited. We walked the steep and beautiful trail down to the pebble or rather rocky beach, where most surfers launch and get back up on shore. Down there the action is much more intense.
Our Swedish neighbor, and very happy camper, Dan, on his way down to Jaws shoreline.
Powerful shore brake, broken boards, broken surfers, dramatic launch attempts, stoked surfers, screaming spectators, but most of all the waves so beautiful and so very beautifully surfed. 10 years ago, this was all regarded as impossible, now young kids (well compared to Laird and Kalama at least) are just doing it without much hesitation. This is really were the difference between a regular visitor/ tourist windsurfer (me) and a born and raised Maui surfers (charging 20 foot Jaws) becomes as most apparent. I’m getting nervous just by thinking about it, and no money in the world would get me trying to paddle in on one of those things, the local surfers seems to drop in on everything that moves. It is like comparing the shape of my 6’4 with the shapes of all the amazing 10’6 guns – there is very little they have in common.
Rusty 10’6 for Jaws
We stayed for at least an hour, maybe two, down at the shoreline. What we saw, heard and felt are beyond words. Some of us was just silent, with the eyes glued to the action. I sometimes shut my eyes listening and breathing in the ocean powers.
Tora taking it all in
Matt Meola had an extremely rough way back to shore. Once up he sat totally still for 30
minutes and then walked up without saying a word.
900 bucks down the drain.
Professional pictures of the action this very day can be found on the one and only Internet. Search for Jaws or Peahi December 31, 2012, or something similar, or check in:
Surfline’s take on the same day
OK, thats all for now. The adventures continues on this wonderful island of Maui. Pleas check in soon and find out more!
/JB
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