April Swell, Day 1

The eagerly anticipated north swell arrived on Maui today, and oh how sweet it was! Sure there's been some smallish waves over the past couple of weeks, occasionally, but today brought genuine, heart pumping, adrenaline surging north swell to Maui. Eager to get on it, I was on the water at 11:01 am. Conditions that early were kind of light so I had to go out on my 5.3 and 90L. Hardly anyone out at Uppers except a handful of other windsurfers and 3 pesky kiters. The morning session featured super clean, glassy head- to logo-high waves at Uppers. Wind was kind of light at times even on the 5.3, but that made the waves super clean.

After about an hour or so the wind seemed to fill in a little more and the waves grew. By 12:30 the sets were regularly logo-high with a few mast-high + sets. These were absolutely beautiful clean blue gems, but the 90L board was a bit big to really maximize the fun on these. By 2:00 the wind had built to 4.7 - 5.0 range and I could have easily been on my 5.0 and smaller board, but by then I was toast and decided to call it a day. From what I hear, the wind got a bit gusty and the water got a bit choppier so I think the morning session was the score of the day. I also heard that Hookipa was pretty much junk, at least in the morning, with huge junky waves and onshore wind. Uppers was definitely the place to be today. Days like these are what windsurfing fantasies are made of! Hopefully we'll still have a little bit of the swell left over for tomorrow.