Five smiles

[Chan]

    My first 5 smiles day of 2009.  5-7 foot Kanaha with the 20 minute beeeeg set.  A good mix of clean open faces, sectioning obstacle courses, and the occasional pounding closeout to keep us on our toes. Only about 20 people out and plenty of stoke to go round.  Epic conditions should remain well into the evening –go get some!!!

[stoneaxe]

Sigh....and here I am all excited about a chest high swell thats supposed to hit tomorrow coinciding with temps above 20 degrees....glad to hear about the 5 smiles...hoping I find a couple tomorrow...

[Admin]

Here is a few from our drive past Ho's later on.  The wind came up a little, and it looked a bit lumpy, but only three guys out.  We didn't wait to see what the better sets looked like.

[PonoBill]

I went out this afternoon and this evening, the wind was still up at 5:00 and the waves got pretty big. Too big for my modest talents. I watched Frank, Brian, Junior and Randy (the other Randy) in the big stuff, but you had to pull out so fast because of the fast closeouts that it looked a little too nasty for me. Especially after a long downwinder this morning, and afternoon session at Kenaha when it wasn't so wacky, a hour at thousand peaks in knee high stuff (hey I thought it might be good--it was pretty big at Makena Landing when we finished the downwinder) and then back to Kanaha. I'm claiming that my legs were shaking from exhaustion, not just pure fear.

Anyway, went back to the channel and caught a couple of lefts, Got pounded good by a big set wave that closed out in the channel, then caught one nice long ride all the way into the lagoon and said g'night.

[Admin]

It is always as much fun to watch other riders getting waves in a great session as it is to get them yourself. 

Two notable examples from the AM were Taka Kamaguchi (Mistral team guy, who someone should spend some money promoting, because this guy is ripping unreal) and Naish grom Bernd Roediger, who at age 11, was doing great and was making already good sized waves look positively huge.

[Chan]

The smiles continue.  The surf backed down a bit today so we took a look at the outer reefs. Two guys were getting rides way off in the distance and they looked like fun rides.  That was all it took. We went to check it out.  Turned out to be Dave and Junior Kalama (no wonder it looked good).  I sat and watched a few from the shoulder.  Junior caught a few makers, for such a powerful guy he is surprisingly graceful.  I saw Dave dip into a juicy barreling wave from the far side of the peak.  Just beautiful. The pros sure do make it look easy.  I only wish I were in the future so I could upload the images from my brain and share them, study them, and just look at them when I get bored.

[PonoBill]

I saw all you guys out there, I told Randy as he went by that it looked like some kind of religious ceremony out there. i guess it was. the waves looked outrageous.

I stayed at lowers pretty much all day with a break for lunch. Perfect. Some pretty big stuff, but for the most part 5 foot (overhead and a half) stuff. Surprisingly long hold downs when I ate it, good thing I've been working on my new zen breath-holding technique. (oooommmm)