NWS had been predicting some giant surf on Wednesday for many days, 20-30ft with higher surf possible at "select outer reefs". We got scattered reports that Jaws was in fact breaking but mostly around 25ft (but see update below). Originally we thought about checking out the action there but we weren't sure if our little mini-van could make it down the pineapple access road (reports said it was drive-able but definately sketchy after the afternoon rain). The direction of this swell, 330 degs, might have caused some energy to be blocked by the smaller islands NW of Maui (at least for Hookipa and points west). Also the swell did not have the most optimal period. It was around 16 secs at the peak in the early morning and then dropped to around 13 secs by the evening. Which made the surf a bit chaotic and closing out at least later in the day. No surfers at Hookipa and definately no windsurfers - the lack of wind took care of that (except for very late in the day at Kanaha).
Anyway, the surf was still pretty impressive from Hookipa. We took some pictures around noon with my tiny camera (very tiny compared to some of the huge-mongo cameras out on the bluff). You can get a pretty good idea what the surf was like from these shots - click each tab below for a view.
[ Update: I got reports today that Jaws was firing at around 40+ ft at the peak of the swell. Tow-in surfers were on it in the morning. In the late afternoon the wind came up and some windsurfers gave it a go. Not sure if that worked but Kanaha was apparantly fun in the late evening as well. ]
Enjoy!
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