SWELL CHARTS ETC....

Reef McIntosh ...dropping into a pot of gold at yesterday arvos shoot at Off The Wall. I shot this pic from the front yard of the "Oakley House".













It's superbowl sunday over here today, so I'll probably have the beach to myself after about 2pm US time as apparently there will be some parties going on all over the states today, and to all who are....enjoy yourselves as I'm sure you will. I do know of one group that is definitely having a get together, so I hope it goes well for you guy's.


I had the good fortune to run into Reef McIntosh last night over at the "Oakley House", had a bit of a chat to him and as it happened he had just come out of the surf at OTW and I had just been shooting him. I said I would dig out a few of the images I had just shot and get them to him.


And now it's time for a little educational lesson for all you guys that don't follow the surf that much........


This is one of the swell forecast charts from http://www.surfline.com/ that I receive on a regular basis. These give me 5 days "look ahead" as to whats going to be coming up in the wave department anywhere in the world....as you've probably guessed, Hawaii is the one that's always on the top of my list and here is a prime example of exactly why. It tells me the tides, wind direction and swell size and direction. Click on the picture and have a good look, and also click on the Surfline link if you feel inclined, it will give you more of an understanding of what this gig's all about, notice the wind direction arrow....offshore @ 7 knots....doesn't get much better than that I say !



The absolute and utmost perfect swell direction for Pipeline is west, but north west is still perfect and delivers epic waves to pretty well all of the North Shore, the colours in the above chart start at blue...1 -2 foot and go up to pink / purple...35 foot+. As you can see in this chart there is a lot of pink / purple for tuesday and wednesday which makes for me being a very happy camper at this point in time.



I am editing what I wrote this morning here for a minute in this next paragraph......ok.



I have just come back to the house after my little expedition for the day where I climbed the Pupekea Escarpment.... all because I wanted an overall shot of the place to show you guys, anyway, more of that later.



After that little climb, I decided to walk down the KeNui bike path to Sunset Beach and walk home via the beach and see what's going on. Surf is reasonably quiet today so I'm free you might say....it's "the Buildup".



I got to the lifeguard tower, fired a few shots off for 30 minutes and out of the tower walks Dave Wasell, the guy you will see regularly on my website http://www.malstewart.com/ and more than likely on this blog. I recognised him and introduced myself and ended up talking for about 20 minutes. The point of all this editing by the way is that in our conversation, the swell of this Wednesday popped up (me being the popper...look out, I'm having dejavu.....it could actually be "Big Wednesday".....stay tuned to see).



I asked him where I should be shooting that day as I know that Pipeline, OTW or anywhere around here is going to be so screwed up it will be pure mayhem. I will try and shoot Pipe in the buildup and the drop down when its at it's max for holding good......about 10 - 15 feet, above that it goes its own way (just like Fleetwood Mac did). Anyway, just as I suspected, Dave's response was "try the Waimea shorebreak as it's going to be an absolute monster west swell........(there's those magic words....WEST SWELL) which is exactly as I was planning on doing, but it means doing "The Bus" on the day as I have no wheels, I might try and get a lift up there early with one of the house people here and then bus back when the shit's hit the fan on the Kam Hwy later as it will only cost me $2 and it doesn't matter how long it takes to get home, I can check my pics out on the way....probably walk quicker actually, it's only a couple of kilometers and I sure won't have my big 600mm lens in tow....the waves will be big enough on their own to fill the whole picture without it, stay tuned to the blog as that post should be just nuts.

The road through here, the Kam Highway will be at an absolute stand still shutdown that day with rubber necking tourists from Waikiki, So it looks like thats where I'll be on the day...bring on the Waimea shorebreak.....never shot it or seen it at it's prime, but this is my time by hell, as I said, this trip has been nothing but pure gold. You guys at home are going to be bored mindless with my slideshow when I get home, sorry.....na, I'm not really !

I just got to the end of my editing and saw the next few lines and realised....how good is it when it's six foot and I feel I can have a day off like I did.....I'll need a holiday when I get home.



STOP, end of editing. Carry on from above.



The report for today here Sunday 7th Feb is six to ten foot and double overhead with good conditions....more of the same that we have had since day one of me getting here as the pics through this blog will show.



I just got back from the beach and it's exactly as the above described. The full report for the next five days is below
The below report is cut and pasted....not written by me.


SUNDAY 02/07..GOOD

MONDAY 02/08..GOOD

TUESDAY 02/09..VERY GOOD

WEDNESDAY 02/10..VERY GOOD

THURSDAY 02/11..VERY GOOD


SURF:
6-10 ft +
head high + to double overhead

SURF:
4-5 ft
shoulder to head high occ. 6 ft

SURF:
5-7 ft
head high to 2 ft overhead

SURF:
20-25 ft
4-5 times overhead

SURF:
18-20 ft
4 times overhead

WNW swell fading, biggest early; trades return
Fading NW swell, biggest early; possible new NNW pulse; rising E trades
Building new WNW swell due to fill in during the afternoon with larger sets, stay tuned!
Possible solid WNW swell builds to a peak; moderate ENE trades...stay tuned
WNW swell easing

WINDS
Show Wind Details

TIDES
Show Tide Text


WEATHER

MOSTLY SUNNY74 - 81°F

MOSTLY SUNNY74 - 81°F

MOSTLY SUNNY74 - 81°F

MOSTLY SUNNY74 - 81 F

Me again from here. Notice Wed and Thursdays wave heights........dam big.

Anyway, that will do as far as the "educational" side of things go from me, but I thought it would be interesting for you guys to see a bit of how this all works.


I follow these charts closely and regularly, which in turn has always made me want to come here in Febuary to try and get this place as good as it gets (and seeing what I saw back in AU over November to January was the clincher) and this time I hit gold you could say...I got way more than what I was expecting and would even go as far as saying that I got more than what I was hoping for...(way more actually).


Now it's time to relax a bit until Tuesday when we get the big west/north west hit. Charge batteries, format CF cards, clean sensors, lenses etc etc and start amping up for what should be an absolutely truly incredible experience.....who's excited again...ME. Thats who. I'm off to the beach to shoot again for a while. Back later.



I'm back....first up I thought I had better show you that Wasell was actually in that pit from the last post, so go to the next post please and as of now, every time I post it will be a new one, so go to the archives at start of page on right and look for the dates...editing existing posts is too hard. My problem is that I wake up at about 4.30 am every morning and it doesn't get light here until about 7am so I tend to blog in the morning waiting till daylight and then again at night....just look at post headings to see where I am.

hope you enjoyed this one.

Anyone like my "Wave" shot !!!