This Bud's for Us

Most people probably aren't aware that, here in the Pacific, we have a hurricane season that corresponds to the hurricane season in the Atlantic. The eastern Pacific's first hurricane this season was Bud. Bud, like it's anemic beer namesake, has fizzled to weak little surface low pressure system so there is no real threat of it doing any damage to Hawaii. But, it will most likely have an effect on our winds. It's currently stumbling along toward us, and probably won't even bring much rainfall, but it will be enough of a nuisance to slacken our trade winds a bit more than they already are.

The last few days we've had pretty light trades for this time of year - 5.5 - 6.0 for most guys. I sailed 5.7 yesterday for the first time in quite awhile. Probably could have made the 5.3 work at times. It was actually kind of nice to get some mellow sailing in after so much 4.0 - 4.5 sailing the last few weeks.

Crowds are at their peak levels right now at Kanaha - lots of local families, mainland families as well as lots of visiting windsurfers from Japan. It's interesting to see how the visitor demographics change throughout the year. I think August tends to bring a lot of folks from Italy. Germans tend to visit more during the wave season.

Anyway, looks like today might actually be lighter than the last couple of days. Then Bud will probably kill the wind a bit more for the rest of this week. Looks like more typical July trade winds return after the weekend.