Hawaii travel advise

That post is useless then, and so are these next few. I don't have any pics of waves or surfing from the entire trip. Not sure how I'd have taken many since the breaks I mostly surfed were like a half mile from shore and I don't have any water photography equipmente. But I'm also lazy and suck at taking pictures and don't really ever take any. The spot we surfed on the north shore was much closer to the beach but conditions were pretty ugly there and I didn't bother. Full report (words only) to follow in the next few postes. Disclaimer: I tend to be really long winded and write in borderline run-on sentences and excessively large paragraphs; don’t say I didn’t warn you. I did try to use more paragraphs than I normally would, but they still probably way too long for most of you with your severe ADHD and 15 second attention spans (no judgment, I’m probably even worse than most of y’all, except when I’m writing apparently).

Anyway, awesome, awesome trip, and although the wind was annoying, I really couldn't have asked for a better setup swell-wise. I didn't realize before the trip that there were two hiltons in Waikiki... we were staying not at the Hilton Waikiki (which I didn't actually see but I gather is kinda in the middle of waikiki beach) but at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which is all the way at the west end of Waikiki and borders Ala Moana beach park (and is also incidentally the largest hotel I've ever been to in my life, with eight giant towers, each of which would be one of the largest hotels I’ve ever stayed at).

Got in Saturday afternoon but we didn't get to hotel and checked in and settled until like 430 and had a welcome party/dinner at 6 (there were random optional events to attend throughout since it was technically a work convention for my friend, although the general concept was that the trip was a reward for top performing sales people and so most people skipped all the events and just sat by the pool and drank all day). But the waves looked to be waist high at best and we elected to take advantage of the free food and open bar at the dinner and did not have time to get board rental figured out and get a session in. I wanted to try personally... having never been on a surf trip before I was going nuts the second the plane landed and just wanted to get in the water, but my friend wasn't really on board with that plan. He's been to hawaii before, been on other surf trips before, but also isn't nearly as surf-obsessed as me these days.... only surfs a handful of times a year in jersey now, when it's warm and the waves are at least head high and the wind is perfectly offshore but no harder than 5-10 mph and he has absolutely nothing else to do. I felt like he was getting borderline annoyed with my level of stoke at points, and since he was hooking me up with a free trip I did my best to chill and be a cooperative date for the evening.

 

A couple days before the trip, I had reconnected with a friend from college who I hadn't seen or talked to in 10+ years but lives in Honolulu now, and we met up with him Sunday morning for first session of trip at Ala Moana. He brought two longborts for us, and let us borrow them for the entire trip which was awesome and saved us each about $100 on board rental. Knowing we were gonna meet up with him and he likely had boards for us to borrow was also part of the reason I didn't go too nuts trying to find a board rental place in the hour or so we had free on Saturday. One board was a 9'0" lighter thinner narrower "performance" longbort (I don't love that term, not really a fan of that style of longborting, but it's the best way to describe the shape), and the other was a 9'4" or 9'6" that was slightly thicker but otherwise extremely similar in shape to the 9'6" mark martinson that is my primary bort at home. It looked like a total beater but rode beautifully. I rode the 9'0" for the first 2.5 sessions of the trip then my buddy asked if I wanted to switch for a couple waves and once I got the first wave on the longer one I refused to switch back for the rest of the trip. Both rode well and were fun though.

Preliminary forecast had said a swell was supposed to come in Sunday but it wasn't really showing yet in the morning. Waves were waist to maybe chest high though and plenty fun, albeit pretty crowded and somewhat inconsistent. We started out at ala moana bowls but more toward the right side of it, paddled over to whatever the left is on the next break to the east (not sure the name) after a bit, and eventually made our way back to the right at bowls. Mostly ended up drifting between those two spots for the entire trip since they were basically right in front of the hotel, fun, and not too crowded the entire time. Wanted to eventually make it all the way to kaiser’s and check out all the spots in between, but ended up being lazy and just going back for more at the same couple spots againe and againe. Wind was moderately hard offshore Sunday morning, probably 15-20 mph when we first went out but increasing during the session, though it didn't really affect rideability negatively at all, at least from my perspective (I'm sure it would've been better with no wind but I had no complaints).

Surfed for about three hours in the morning, took a few hours off to eat some food, rehydrate, and chill in the pool for a bit, then went back out in the same general area for another 3+ hours Sunday afternoon/evening. It was a little bigger with a couple solid head high sets coming through, though still not as big as forecasts had suggested (I found out later the forecast for Sunday had been downgraded from 5-9’ faces to only 2-5’, but I hadn’t checked it during the day). Wind had increased to probably 25-30, but perfectly rideable waves were coming through with the only annoyance being visibility on takeoff due to the spray. Surfed right up until dark.

 

Monday morning the forecasted swell finally showed up, and we had the best session of the trip from about 6:30-10:00, at the left that was just to the east of bowls. Much less crowded than Sunday and notably bigger than the previous evening. I’d say the biggest sets coming through were in the 8’ range (by jersey standards). Reminded me of the Gert swell here in moco, in terms of size, shape, and rideability. Smooth easy takeoffs on the longbort, followed by fun-sized drops and long clean walls to carve on. Wind was blowing hard againe but it didn’t matter. So many fun waves. Almost all lefts at the spot we were at just east of bowls… would’ve preferred to go right more as a regular foot but the left we were on was good and not crowded at all so it didn’t really make sense to move.

After the Monday morning session we rented a car for the rest of the day (just from noon to 10pm to avoid paying for hotel parking, plus no point keeping it when the waves right in front of the hotel were about as fun as anywhere) and drove up to the north shore. Conditions up there were not nearly as good as in town; the wind was blowing hard (30-35, with gusts up to 45-50) out of the northeast so it was semi-onshore and sloppy, and the swell they were getting was smaller than the one down south. Drove the whole way up checking pretty much every spot we found, and ended up paddling out a couple hundred yards east of pipeline right in front of the guard tower. Seemed best there out of all the spots we checked, actually looked fairly clean from shore but once we got out there it was head high to a couple feet overhead and very bumpy and drifty and actually extremely reminiscent of a big and somewhat disorganized (but not full on washing machine) session here in jersey.

Had a relatively terrible session overall, couldn’t get the spot/conditions dialed in or get into a wave to save my life, finally got a decent one to end the session after what seemed like two hours of nonstop paddling and just being in the wrong place constantly. But I’m not complaining, no regrets about the decision to go out there. It was one of those sessions where pretty quickly into it I was over it and just looking for one wave to come in on, and couldn’t even find that for like an hour plus. Conditions definitely weren’t optimal but the problem was at least 95% me 1) not having the spot figured out at all and 2) being a p***y because the fact that it was the north shore got in my head a bit and I assumed there were random rocks and reef just under the water everywhere around me and didn’t want to take off on anything I wasn’t likely to make (I’m well aware that that mindset never really works out well). A couple of the guys out were killing it on shortborts, landing big airs and such, and there was a girl out on a longbort getting tonnes of nice rides, so I definitely can’t blame the conditions. Definitely the kookiest part of the trip for me, and in hindsight would’ve had better waves if we stayed in towne, but that was the best day for us to get up there logistically and I’m glad I got to see all the spots and get in the water up there (although without a propere swell, I still can’t really picture what it looks like when it’s going off). Hung out afterwards at the food truck park and feasted with my buddy’s old roommate who lives in Haleiwa (he had joined us midsession when he got off work… he had difficulty figuring out the conditions too which made me feel slightly less of a kook, but only slightly).

 

Tuesday morning we were scheduled to go snorkeling with sea turtles (the trip my friend won included one free excursion and that seemed like the coolest of the options). It was originally supposed to be Sunday but was cancelled moved due to wind and waves. Waves were supposed to still be fun, but the swell had already peaked and after back to back 6 hour days we were pretty surfed out. Showed up at the meeting spot and the implication was that it was on, so we took a short bus ride to the boat taking us out to the spot. During the pre-sailing safety briefing on the boat they mentioned that we wouldn’t actually be snorkeling because conditions were unsafe (i.e. there’s waves), and instead it was just gonna be 4 hours of sailing and drinking on the boat. Which I’d be down for under typical vacation circumstances, but given that I’m in Hawaii with a bort and there’s swell right in front of the hotel and I got nothing to do but surf…. yeah, f*** that. Got off the boat, got a ride back to the hotel, and paddled out at bowls from 8:30 till around noon. Smaller than Monday but still some head high sets coming through, super windy again but still very rideable, had probably my best session of the trip since I had figured out the spot pretty well by then and it was small enough to not give a f*** how bad I ate it so I was paddling for every wave I saw. Fairly uncrowded and most people were looking for lefts, so I sat a few feet over and caught rights pretty much nonstop for the entire session (plus the occasional left that swung a bit to the east, leaving me right on the peak).

Went back out Tuesday evening with my friend who lives in town for a couple hours, waist to chest high, still windy but still fun, after-work crowd was a bit more of a factor but plenty of waves, nothing really notable about it though. Gave the borts back to him after that session, figuring Wednesday would be small and we were leaving for the airport by noon anyway and it would be a hassle getting the borts back to him without a car. But then Wednesday morning I was done packing by around 8:30 with nothing else to do, so I rented a giant 10’ log and went out for a quick final session in still-worthwhile knee-to-waist high waves before heading to the airport and back home.

 

All told it was a great trip. Surfed for about 18 hours over three days. Got pretty lucky from what I understand with getting a pretty solid south swell in late October, and got really lucky with the exact timing of the swell coinciding perfectly with the three full days we were there. Did not get to take advantage of many of the recommendations in this threade because mostly all we did was surf right in front of the hotel. I gather Diamond Head got quite a bit bigger but was far less clean than Waikiki. Had we had a car for longer I’d have maybe gone to take a look there, but there was no reason to rent a car for longer. Did not eat a ton of noteworthy food… normally when I travel a primary focus is seeking out the best food I can possibly find, but on this trip it was mostly just refuel with whatever is quick and not too expensive so I can get back in the water. Wanted to jump off the rock at Waimea, but lot was full and didn’t want to leave borts on the roof of the car on side of road and too lazy to carry them down to beach with us so that didn’t happen. We were gonna try to stop there and do it on the way back down toward Haleiwa but ended up paddling out and surfing till near dark instead.

A little annoying that the wind was basically 25 mph or more literally at all times for the entire trip, even in the mornings, but I really didn’t feel like it negatively affected the waves all that much (actually it probably did, but they were still plenty good from my perspective). In terms of purely wave quality and rideability, not even taking into account personal stoke level, ease of logistics, and time in the water, all three days will likely end up in my top ten of 2017, with the middle day of the trip being second only to 8/16 (gert), and only by a small margin. Funny thing is my buddy who lives in town was annoyed enough by the wind that he said he might not have bothered surfing at all had I not been there… I guess that’s how spoiled you get when you live in paradise. Thanks again to all who gave advise and recommendations, all things considered it was a better trip than I could’ve possibly imagined.

 

Lol, re-reading I realized I claimed both monday and tuesday morning were the best session of the trip. To clarify: Monday was objectively the best in terms of overall wave quality and I had my best individual rides of the trip, but Tuesday was probably the funnest session for me personally because I got dozens of rides and went through long stretches of wave after wave where as soon as I paddled back out another wave would come right to me.

 

f*** yeah it did!

Curious though, what would have the waves had been like with the same swell but no wind? My friend who lives in towne out there implied it would have been hollower without the wind... which confused me because when I think of hard offshore winds here in jersey I think of barrels (and winter and freezing my nuts off). Does it work differently out there? It certainly wasn't hollow, I saw a grand total of one person get barreled on my entire trip, and I'm not even sure he made it out.