BackLoop-a-thon

Very similar day today to yesterday. I got a call in the early afternoon that the conditions were beautiful. Wrapped up some computer work and dashed down the mountain to Kanaha. By the time I got there and rigged a squall was just moving in. Waited that out but then headed up to Uppers with my 4.5 and 83 liter wave board where again some small waist to head high waves were rolling in a small section.

I was a bit tentative today approaching any ramps after yesterday's rotational orbit, so I watched the others to see how they handle it. Seemed to be a backloop-fest today. A couple of guys were just throwing backloops all over the place, making it look easy. Other people seemed to be able to launch vertically and somehow level off without initiating the initial rotation.

After watching a bit, I summoned up the courage to go for it again. I spotted a nice vertical wall, hit it similar to yesterday, but this time I just kept telling myself, "Bear off, bear off, bear off." That seemed to do the trick. As soon as I left the top of the wave I just bore (or is that beared, bored) off the wind. That seemed to level me off and I came down into a nice tail first landing, somewhat submerged but able to get up and going again before the next wave smacked me. Cool!

It was a rather short-lived session as another squall was threatening upwind. The squall rendered a beautiful rainbow as I sailed back downwind to the launch. It's a very cool thing about sailing Maui - sailing with rainbows.