There was some other activity just outside the break...
I continue to be impressed with how well this Panasonic camera zooms and focuses from a distance. This is a handheld shot taken from the overlook parking lot at the middles break, which is pretty darn far away.
Left or right - take your pick...
Focusing on the moment...
More approval from the outer lineup...
That's very clean wave...
The lineup wasn't that crowded ... everyone got their turn...
Soul Surfing
After watching these very nice but somewhat large waves at Hookipa along with the whales dancing in the background, Julia and I decided it was time to get ourselves wet. We had two new (well slightly used) surf boards (Elua Makani from 2nd Wind) and we hadn't surfed since last Fall, so we wanted some smaller more private waves. For that we drove to West Maui to a "secret" surf spot just north of Launiupoko called "guardrails" - which means you have to park on the other side of a busy highway and jump over a guard rail to get to the beach. But the beach was nice and sandy and no one else was on the water when we paddled out into the 2-4 ft waves - perfect size for our first rides. And all went well! Both our boards, an 8'6 for me and 8' for Julia, proved easy to paddle and catch rides.
Which is nice because there had been some controversy about what size board I needed. Obviously a longer board is easier to paddle and catch smaller waves, but can be hard to manage in bigger surf. Last fall we started with our thick and short beginner boards from Costco (Wave Storms) and from there we tried an 8'6 board and then some 7'6 mini tankers. In what is probably not a normal progression, we had never been on anything bigger than 8'6, so I was already comfortable with that size. Another factor was what fit inside our Maui vehicle - a Dodge Caravan (not Grand). A 9'0 board barely fit, touching both windshields, so shorter boards seemed a better option as long as we could ride them. I should also mention that our windsurfing boards have become much shorter. My current board, the 80l Quattro which I have been using in all conditions and all sails, is only 7'4! Besides the performance aspects, smaller gear is so much easier to lug around. I once had a 12 ft windsurfing board (Fanatic Ultra Cat) strapped to the top of my tiny little Honda Civic. My windsurfing board was bigger then my car (and probably cost more)!
OK, when I said all went well above, I left out one tiny kooky moment Julia and I had during our first few minutes on the water. I paddled out first and went out further, trying to catch a larger-ish (maybe 4ft) wave. When I saw one coming I turned around, started paddling hard and would have got this wave. But! Then I noticed (and should have noticed sooner but I was so concentrating on catching this wave) that Julia was still paddling out - directly inside and now in front of me. Instead of trying to stand I just held onto my board, with the wave breaking right behind me, and that's when I learned that you can't really steer a board that way. So I continued more or less straight without any control and hit the back of Julia's board. The crazy thing is, for probably a 3 mile stretch of beach (at least) we were the only people out. So we lectured each other about a) not being so close b) maybe looking first before paddling onto a wave to make sure we are not about to run over our true luv. After that all was truly well. Except that when we got to the beach Julia noticed that her board had a small ding. But the nice thing about glass boards and Solarez is how easy it is to fix such things. And so after a quick repair, all was really truly well.
Willie K at Mulligans
After the surf sesh, we wanted to check out some St Patty festivities Maui style. We had asked some friends earlier in the week where to go, and they mentioned "Mulligans in Wailea". So we headed that way without any real clue where it was or what we would find. Eventually, after almost confusing it with Moose McGillicutty (a very different place), we found it. Or I should say we found the cars parked about a mile before the place. I was about to blow the whole thing off but we found a very lucky parking spot near the entrance. This place was huge! It turns out to be the club house / bar / restaurant for the Old Blue Golf Course and it looked like it could hold 1000 people easy. And on this particular evening it was full.
So we walked up and discovered there was a twenty buck cover charge. Again we were about to blow it off - seemed like a steep price just to drink some green beer - but the lady in front of us turned around and handed us a free ticket. So the luck of the Irish came through and we were in. And it was then that we discovered that Willie K was the headlining act for the evening. Yes! Now if you haven't spent much time on Maui you probably don't know who Willie K is, but suffice it to say that he is Maui's most famous home grown musician. He has an operatic voice combined with the guitar skills of BB King, Santana, and Eric Clapton and can also faith fully cover Hendrix, Sting, Slash, and pretty much anyone else. He sings Hawaiian traditional, classical, blues, jazz and all the rock standards. He has also written a ton of his own music. We'd seen him twice before, once at one of his own shows (which unfortunately we had to leave before the last set), and another time he did a very short set opening for Sheryl Crow. In both cases I felt we hadn't seen his best stuff. Well on St Patties night at Mulligan's he rocked the place for all it was worth.
He started with an electric version of Danny Boy, then jumped into some classic BB King style blues, then covered U2, the Stones, Hendrix, Santana, Ave Maria (classical), Bob Marley, Lynard Skynard, and much more. It was a party atmosphere and he put on a show to please the crowd, playing from 9 to past midnight without a break. And yes we stayed up past the "real" midnight for a change. I put together a little music video / ken burns thing to give an idea what it was like. Hope you enjoy. Aloha!
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