Thank you Team Mauirippers for this fantastic shot.

The picture was taken by Byron Yap, Maui rippers photographer.

Another solid swell built over night and reached Honolua Bay. The direction this time was more north, which gave the wave a bit of a different shape. Especially the Cave section of Honolua Bay prefers a westerly direction. Nevertheless some of the bigger sets were easy triple over head, but it were the medium waves with the good barrels.

Enjoy the pictures of another great day at Honolua Bay!

Sunset at a West Maui secret spot

Wind speed: 25kt gusts up to 35kt, wind direction: 20degrees north

It was like the Maliko Run came to West Maui today. The wind direction was perfect for a “Down Winder” on West Maui. The north winds of the cold front passing through the state were gusting up to 35kt and pelting squalls of rain were riding along with the gusts. Over all a day to stay at home, but not for Tim and me, the conditions for a “Down Wind” Run could not have been better for our side of the island.

Tim on the move.

We were planning to paddle from Napili to Lahaina a good 8mile run. We were making good pace down the coast, I was a good half mile ahead, when I decided to jump on my friends boat along the way at Ka’anapali North Beach. I reached out for the boat with my paddle to make sure I won’t miss, the paddle got caught between a shroud and a cleat, then a wave hit me and the paddle snapped in half by the force of me holding on to it. WHAT A BUMMER! I was, and still am so PISSED to loose my nice carbon paddle, which was not cheap either.

Time arrived at the boat about 10 minutes later and I had to tell him that our run is over due to my stupid move. We had no choice but to paddle to shore to call someone to pick us up an drive us down to Lahaina to my car.

Nevertheless we had a great time and a good workout. Now I need to look for a new paddle. Fantastic!

If you are interested in this great sport and boards click here for to find a great board to start with.

On of the first thing that came to my mind was, now that everybody in Lahaina was busy evacuating and the county possibly closing the roads near the the shore, that Honolua Bay must be super uncrowded to surf. I could not help it but take the drive up to the Bay and see for my self and yes indeed there were 5 crazy ones surfing perfect waves to themselves. The sets were over head and the conditions were nearly perfect. Around 10.30am coast guard boats were patrolling up and down the coast to get people out of the water. All people were advised to seek higher grounds, neighborhoods in the evacuation zone turned into gosttowns. The neighborhood we were visiting our friend at, up on the hill, was packed with cars and people. There were people everywhere camping out on the side of the highway the public live pretty much shut down for 3 hours.

H-Bay uncrowded like in the 60ties

Everybody was now waiting for 11.05am and the arrival of the first wave. We were watching the action on TV at our friends house. The live camera was pointing to Hilo Bay on the Big Island, where the tsunami was expected to hit first. At around 11.23am we could see how the water resided from the bay. Now everybody was in suspense on how forceful the water would come back. About 3 minutes later the bare reef was showing in the bay and the water started to rush back in to the bay, once the bay was filled up again the whole thing repeated it self for about 4 times. That was it, we saw a tsunami in action. Lucky for everybody the tsunami only materialized in a rapid change of the sea level and not in a crazy wave washing out the shorelines. There were no reports do damage and injury.

My condolences go out to the people in Chile who were not as lucky as us here on Hawai’i.

Cheers,

Mike

Time to impact: 1.55hours

The public live pretty much came to a halt.