Maui nightlife

It being a Saturday, it must be time to go out in the evening. Since we're almost upside-down, let's go for a curry as a starter, and do music and beer later... The Cafe des Amis does a chicken curry so we have that. It's ok, not very hot, but pretty tasty and a change from all the other stuff (fish and pizza, basically).

The stroll down the street to get to the cafe is very relaxed, the shops look very attractive in a quaint old-time kind of way, with low key street lighting and the remains of the setting sun in the sky.

The trusty Mana foods store is still open...

But then it's time to go to Charley's, where there is a Jam for Japan on, to raise aid cash and show solidarity of some sort. On the way, we encounter Bill Keys, the street poet, who will write a poem about anything, anytime. Guy asks him to do so.

And then we get to Charley's. This is apparently Willie Nelson's choice of bar, seeing as he lives in Maui. The walls have many pictures of him, including with his dog, and one wall has a row of gold and platinum albums. Blimey. 

The band is playing reggae. In fact, the night proves to be one of absolutely unrelenting reggae, with the prime movers being white guys, often wearing non-irey baseball caps with unkempt hair sticking out from under, shouting impenetrable lyrics about mother earth, repression and so on, all very credible from corn-fed home boys. The picture shows the only female singer, who was quite good.

By this time our numbers are reduced to me, Dave (roommate) and Guy, and then another band comes on, with another white guy singer, and a scarey Axl Rose styled guitarist - eek! And yes, it's reggae-stylee... Time for bed.

The sun comes out at the end of the day...

I think it's fair to say that most people were feeling strangely underwhelmed this morning. Maybe it's the vast amounts of pizza, the beer, or the efforts of yesterday, but nobody seemed too keen to get started. But we all went over to Sprecks for 11 anyway, on the assumption that it would be crowded being a Saturday and all...

But no, it was empty! Nobody there but us to start with, at least, not staying - there was a kelp diver hauling out the equivalent of large potato bags or nets of seaweed, and stacking them in his pickup. The wind? Pretty good, given that there wasn't supposed to be much. I fancied a 4.7, but it all got complicated because we are currently hosting Max, the Aussie, on the grounds that his van buddy Swedish Jorgen had gone off to hospital to get his knee checked out. Max had allegedly packed some sails in the van, but clearly hadn't, as there was only one of most things that people wanted. So he ended up with a 4.5 and me with a 4.7.

Guy eventually turned up, and we spent most of the day doing taking practice! Hard work, especially as the wind was super-flukey, and waterstarting was a pain. I've now developed the technique of hanging around for a gust to a fine art, limiting my energy usage. But the finale of the day was the pre-forward loop training - doing imitations of crashing bombers, before trying it with sails and attempting to bang the mast foot straight down on the beach. Glad it's rental gear... Nobody seemed to have much energy, but we were visited by Franciso Goya, who came over to try out one of his prototype boards and sails. He was happy to demonstrate a forward! We also got some tips from Robbie Swift, in exchange for Guy teaching his girlfriend how to waterstart. Hmm.

So the day wound down - I tried just one of the pre-loop jump things, where you try to launch yourself in a catapult round the mast. It's hard! Then... I was suddenly seized with a mental image of myself doing it. I threw the cap int he van, since it came off on my initial crap go, and ran back out, and executed three straight off!! A long time dead... the rest of the post-sail time was spent derigging at a frantic pace, just because I could.

And the sun set on a good day...

Ho'okipa and more...

Not much wind today at all, except at... Ho'okipa! The place of legendary acts of heroism by mythical giants - as my new t-shirt says, "we were kings"!

After a suitably legendary breakfast of eggs benedict at Charleys, just as a change from porridge, Jurgen and I headed over there with Steve in the 3rd seat, hitching a ride because Cribby had gone off on some errand or other. Absolutely nobody out except for a good-looking lady who went out as we arrived - it was windy on the outside but clearly nothing much on the inside. She grabbed a few waves - looked easy with nobody else there, but who knows... We were happy to sit in the van watching and chilling!

Then of course the Cribster arrives... he reckons this is a good time to go out, so he and a couple of others rig up and go out. Still doesn't look too hard, but it does seem to involve a bit of swimming around if you fall off on the way out. The current is interesting, crossing from left to right into the lagoon, and thus dragging you into the least windy area if you get caught. Unless you fall off slightly further out and more to the left, in which case you get sucked into the channel and past the rocks, and stand a much better chance of getting out.

So, eventually, I'm convinced. Rig up the 4.7, the biggest board, lose the cap today because I don't want to be distracted by having it fall off in the waves, and it's down to the postage stamp sized launch spot. The shoredump is ok, not really worse than Hayling on a biggish day really, Guy's tip is to keep on walking until you start windsurfing... I do this, get up, start wobbling out. It's pretty light, and I have to say the fearsome rep of Ho'okipa is on my mind, but I'm doing ok... get over 3 or 4 waves, and then there's a big one, and I've lost all momentum, and fall off. Bugger. I then spend the next 20 minutes swimming around, get sucked into the lagoon, tarting around with the sail in all sorts of stupid positions, waterstart, fall off, nearly waterstart, really fall off, consider my options, wonder if anyone's watching (of course they are, all lined up on the beach), start to reconsider this whole windsurfing thing, which is utterly exhausting, feel the energy utterly drain from my legs, and the whole time every 10 seconds or so I'm getting sluiced, with salt water up my nose, down my throat, and my lungs sucking in air in total panic mode. Fortunately this is a benign easy day, so I can hang onto the board like grim death to catch my breath before re-entering the waterstart attempt fray! Dammit, the wind is just not there, I'm hanging around holding the frigging rigging up, which is killing me... the wind only seems to come up when I've tired and dropped it again. Even the slight draught caused by incoming waves doesn't seem to do it...

Eventually, the board is pointing to the beach, and the wind comes up at the right moment - oh did I mention that the beach is a postage stamp, surrounded by sharp rocks and gear-smashing waves? However, amazingly, it all comes together and I ram the board into the beach, where Max leaps down and helps me lift the kit out, because it's still dumping, all the way up to the overhanging bit of beach. Bugger. I'm whacked...

And the wind doesn't really come up much either, so I'm not inspired to try again. Others manage it, Guy reckons I was a bit unlucky with a large set wave coming in as I made it out, but it feels a bit unencouraging. I hang around in my wetsuit like a bad smell, even running over to the Lanes beach to see if big Alex the Norwegian is ok - he's been drifted completely downwind unable to waterstart at all, but gone the other side of the rocks. Old Sean the Auzzie manages to get out and back three times - what's wrong with me?

Riccardo, Kauli and Levi show up, with some new stuff being tested, hey. At least I get to eat my sandwich! Which is welcome. But apparently it's windy at Sprecks, so we all head over there.

And for me, the day really takes off. Powered up on a 5.0, after the Ho'okipa experience this is a total doddle. I'm on fire! Even invented a new Intuition (Guy's training brand) core skill - Ring Skimming, a vital ability for ensuring high speed, top control and ease of travel over chop, along with extended colonic irrigation! Guy gets us to do some completely kamikaze gybe entries using the "oooh, ahhh, Cantona" technique, and finally I get the extended arm thing happening. The day's sailing is completed with some upwind sailing and lots of light wind waterstarts.

Guy has a plan to go and see Riccardo doing a night sail with lights on his sail, from Baby Beach. We pile round there with wet asses, and although the sun is setting, and the cameraman is there, there's no sign of Riccardo. It's a beautiful evening, so who cares?

We head back, shower, collect beer and the F1.8 lens, and go back, only to find that Riccardo has gone to Sprecks - we can just see the glow of his sail in the distance. Shucks. Drink the beer, eats crisps, and then it's back to Nalu Kai for pizza and more beer. A good day. 

Kanaha again

The plan today is to have a barbecue, so A couple of us grab the impressively wedgey kitty (in the ziplock bag provided by yours truly - adopting my mother's habit of saving plastic bags pays off...), and stock up at the Mana Foods supermarket. This is the most random store I've ever been in - like much of its produce, it's probably grown organically! The organiser was and still is probably stoned. Anyway, we get lots of stuff. And another 18 jugs of water, for a total of $251.03. It takes a lot to run 15 people, especially windsurfers!

Since we all know where Kanaha is now, we get to make our own way there for 12, so Jurgen and I put some gas in the van, which we're getting to keep for the trip. We've managed to switch from the original minivan rental. Anyway, a guy hitches a ride with us at the gas station, seems nice enough, but talks too much. I don't really need repaying with stories about his father's 10 miles a day for 50 years fitness habit, and like many people here, he has a slightly edgy strangeness about the eyes... apparently he's lived on various Hawaii islands and done lots of stuff, but it's not clear where he lives now. There appear to be many friends and so on everywhere. He gets out at the lights on Airport road, heading for Costco, having failed to persuade Jurgen, a focussed young man who thinks he knows what he wants, that we should take the "short cut" around the airport and get into Kanaha by a sideroad.

We're all playing for the evening session today, and it looks quite windy and with some small swell, like yesterday. So things get off to a slow start, especially as Cribby buggers off to get a coffee and ends up being gone ages, not arriving back until 1.30 or later. This time we're going to do exercises in the lagoon, going up- and down-wind practising stalling in the straps and accelerating away on gusts. It's hard work! There's also the "ooh, ahh, Cantona!" mnemonic for recalling the bottom turn, cutback and kick rhythm, which has us doing "Cribby Tai Chi" on the beach. Fortunately, Norwegian Alex's lady Cecilia is there to take pictures of the motley crue dancing around on one leg...

And so, to the waves!! My eye is getting better, and I actually end up on a wave, or almost, but it peters out, leaving me to fall in under the next one. The only problem with wavesailing is the incredible skill and effort it takes to get out to the damn things and put yourself in front of one, and then the dogged breathsucking, panicky reefkicking struggle to right the gear without getting it munched and waterstart out of the inevitable crash in the impact zone. Iron in the Soul?? Maybe Jean-Paul Sartre should have windsurfed, got a life and then he'd have been less of an arrogant twat... I do get one excellent wave, but look around, and someone is on it ahead of me upwind, so I have to let him go by, and fall off as a result. Bugger.

But then it all comes together the once, and I remember 50% of the stuff, and try it all out - yay!! Excellent. The reward of a windless waterstart from the impact zone is shared with Jorgen from Sweden, and I get away before him, getting a good speed up through the incoming waves. This tempts me into a jump, which goes ok, but I fall off after, and spend more weeks in the timewarp of swim-flip-push-swim-glurble-waterstart. Bugger. It's good fun on reflection, but I'm absolutely knackered at the end of it. Might have bust a toe - it's bruising up good, and narrowly escaped sticking a fin thru my knee, only bruising. Phew.

The barbecue goes well, apple, tomato and onion salad is pretty tasty, and the "lost water" method of rice cooking works well to sort rice for 15. I over-estimated, always the best policy with large groups! The antipodeans, Max and Lorne, have done a good job on the chicken, pork and burgers, completing just as the gas runs out. We sit around and talk bollocks until late, like maybe 10 o'clock, before I sag off to bed...

A New Spot...

"Another day in paradise" - as Harry Nass, rental centre owner, would say every morning in Dahab. Well, he's in the wrong spot, or has a limited view of paradise, or maybe... anyway, rather than go back to Sprecks again, we were aiming for Kanaha today.

The porridge breakfast is going well - it's the base for many, with extras to taste. I've stuck with the porridge and whatever fruit there is going, usually bananas and apples, washed down with a pint or so of tea.

The Cribby arrangements are as ever complicated - he has to drive over to Robbie Swift's to switch a board he's looking at buying that leaked, someone else has to get some more kit elsewhere... the usual fragmentation. So the plan is simple, we'll all meet at the Hi-Tech windsurf store which is allegedly self-evident, largely because my van buddy Jurgen wants to buy an impact protector.  He broke some ribs on his last Cribby trip to Jeri, and doesn't fancy doing it again. So J and I cruise into Kahului looking for the shop, obviously miss it and have to turn around and ask at the Maui Surf Center, our rental shop. When we do get there, there's no-one there, but the store is truly amazing - two floors of windsurf gear!! It's really hard to restrain oneself, but I manage it, thinking of carrying all this acquired stuff around.

Turns out that they all got there before us, and left!! So we get directions and go to Kanaha, you have to go past the water treatment plant and some other non-paradisical stuff to get there! This is a good reminder of the real Hawaii, with ships and industry and suchlike. It's another through-trees venue, which I like, lots of shade when you need it. The break is to the left of the beach, which is quite long this time, with stone groynes and nice sand.

We do lots of exercises and theory, starting about twelve, and get in a couple of sessions of an hour or so - pretty exhausting. I fail to catch anything very wave-like, and it's incredibly windy, so holding on to my 4.2 is hard work. Cribby's "arse!!" technique for loading up the harness saves my arms but it's still hurting... The break is very very crowded here, lots of people diving in and out with varying degrees of control. We have a third session when the wind has switched from sideshore to slightly cross-off, and many people have switched to the right hand break since they launch from the upwind car park, but I don't go out, preferring to save my arms for another day. A very welcome nap in the van, feeling very tired but good helps!

Sailing again! After a visit...

Smiling Francisco G - a permanent state of affairs!

The plan today was to go back to Sprecks, but before that, we had an invite to Francisco Goya's shop and Keith Teboul's workshop - cool! It's just off the road to Hana, past Ho'okipa, up towards the mountain a bit.

We were met at the door by the man himself, who was immensely friendly and keen to show us around, but was a bit busy at that point. So we had a bit of a look around the shop - lots of Goya boards and sails of course!

Then Keith appeared, and was also apparently too busy... but not as busy as FG. So he kindly volunteered to show us around instead, which was pretty cool, as it was his workshop we were going around...

Keef explaining the initial steps and design

Never been in a shaper's workshop before, so this was all pretty interesting. Lots of pictures to be taken! Keith was pretty forthcoming about the process of board shaping - he gets the blanks CNC machined up the road, and they come back to him for cleaning up and all the other constructional stuff. The boards look like freshly bashed pistes, with that cool corrugated snow look, which is sanded off pretty early on.

They get extra foam sandwich stuck on for strength, and then get the finbox, mast track and footstrap inserts chopped out. Then they get laminated up. All the chemicals seem to be pretty gruesome, so the guys doing it all have positive pressure suits on, so they don't get to breathe any of the good stuff.

Keef adjusting his dangle angle...

Keith adjusts the fin angles manually, by eye. Just about everyone we met was saying that it's impossible to sell a single-fin wave board any more. Apparently the current hull shapes and the multi-fins are so good in all conditions that people hardly need to change down from a board that gets them going in the lightest wind. Cribby even asked how long it would be before shapers were suggesting a one board quiver would be just fine...

Christina contemplates rocker templates...

Although the boards are CNC milled, the eventual rocker details are varied by sanding and the glass/carbon layup. In order to make sure the boards for specific customers have their required rocker choice, Keith uses wood formers to check the actual rocker on each board.

So a KT custom board is around $2500, depending on the options. Surprisingly, they don't do interesting things like using goretex vent plugs, which KT claimed would add too much cost to the board. They even cut the existing finboxes and reglue them to make them smaller... presumably the cost of a die for high-volume production is too high. Dave and I had a lengthy discussion about it later that evening!

Another day comes to a close

After the Goya visit we went to Sprecks again. Pretty windy, and the aim was to get upwind and do jumps and stuff in the smaller waves over to the right. Had a good time, but pretty tired at the end, so didn't go out for the third session. It was actually quite pleasant to doze off in the van, listening to some music on headphones.

The Day Off

No wind today!! At least, there was wind, but in only one place - the legendary Ho'okipa!

We spent the entire day, apart from an hour or so wandering around the shops in Paia, not buying anything, down at Ho'okipa Outlook. The first impression is how small it all is, for somewhere so utterly famous (in the tiny world of (wind)surfing). Really. It's not much larger than say,  Portreath, although less sheltered. There is a monster rock shelf right in the middle at the beach edge, launching is from the left end where about 100m of beach sand actually leads out to sea without rocks. You go over to the left and go out in front of the infamous rocky point, the final destination of much kit over the years!

Loads of really seriously good windsurfers were out today, let's try listing a few:

• Jason Polakow
• Robbie Swift
• Riccardo C
• Ben Profitt
• Phil Horrocks
• Levi Siver
• Dave Ezzy (famous sail designer)
• Kauli Seadi
• Thomas Traversa
• Camilla French
• Bernt Roediger, 14yr old genius (he was pretty good!!)
• Mullet, who spent a lot of time swimming!
• Guy Cribb, who caught one wave...
• A cast of veritable thousands!

One of our guys, Mark, went out too, but really struggled to get board speed to catch a wave, and then when he did catch one, it wasn't really big enough. He did a lot of swimming too!

One of the more unusual things to see was the cameramen, working for the JP/NP team photos which were being done here too. They have the 2012 gear of course... The photographers wear bright red or orange fluorescent helmets to mark them out, because they just swim out, with flippers, in a wetsuit, and hang around in the waves basically all day!! At least, I saw them go out, and didn't see them come back until everyone was more or less done. No flotation, just the camera in a waterproof housing.

So we sat and watched the guys and gals for pretty much all day, apart from a brief and pointless interval where we went to see if it was windy elsewhere but it wasn't. That was ok, as a break, but that's all.

Dinner was from the Paia Fish Market again, blackened ahi with caesar salad - excellent. Went to bed stupidly early, and only woken by a call on the non-silenced iPhone at stupid 'o' clock. 

The first day :-)

Woke up bright and early - 11 hours worth of jetlag will do that to you! Went with Christina to Anthony's Coffee Shop for an omelette and a large cup of tea - very nice, and extremely filling. Other Cribby team members arrived after us, and the place filled up.

From there it was off to the Maui Surf Co, to pick up the already reserved gear, in our vans. My van buddy Jurgen went with Christina to save her having to drive. We stopped at Sprecks on the way back to Kahului so we all knew where it was as a rendezvous after getting the gear. The shop was pretty impressive, all our sets of gear were bundled up ready to go - new masts and lots of new booms too. The boards look pretty cool - all Goya twins and quads. The only snag was the footstraps on the racking in the van - they need a fair bit of pressure and wiggling to get them in!

Sprecks - a famous spot. But it's so small!! No idea why all the film and stills make it look so much bigger, but it's nothing. I had thought these beaches would be like Gwithian - really long, lots of space, but no. The wind was good, looked pretty brisk, but no waves to speak of, no swell at all. This is good for a low-key start to the week!

Rigged a 4.7 on the 84l board, Jurgen took 5.0 and the 94l. A bit of adjustment required but it was soon working well. Nice flatwater riding, and a few jumpy things. Cribby shortly had us doing various drills - acceleration, throwing the rig forward, and switching from an upwind direction to more downwind and getting that real jump of speed, then harness use and stance for increased speed and control. I spent a lot of time trying to ride in and out all the way without using my back hand at all, which was cool because it took the strain off my bad arm! I would have been much better off in CV if I'd done this more, because it would have really helped me in the overpowered conditions. Ah well. I certainly improved a lot doing this.

The day was pretty chilled all round though. At one point the JP team were out, doing various photo and video sessions, and Guy went over to do some interviews for the camera. Then Riccardo and Robbie Swift came over to say hi, which was pretty cool. Nice guys! Guy asked them to do some demo riding for us, which was pretty impressive - Riccardo landed a no-height forward loop right on the edge of the beach! Robbie Swift is a brilliant sailor - quiet guy, but very cool.

The last session involved everyone else buggering off upwind to the slightly wavy bit, but I'd already done that earlier, so I wasn't bothered. Graham and I hooned about just doing jumps and stuff, and I was using the smallest board, a 74l which was fantastically responsive.

On the subject of boards, the quads and twins are quite slidey, in a controlled sort of way. Normally if a board breaks away because the fin loses grip, it's quite hard to bring it back in line, but with these, it happens very smoothly and can easily be brought back in line. I guess this helps those cool rooster-tail things when making top turns :-) - excellent!

Dinner came from the Paia Fish Market, I had the seafood pasta, which was utterly enormous. This had the unfortunate result of causing me to pass out almost completely... so I went to bed. The only problem was that Greg the concierge guy decided that the damn van was not parked close enough to the wall, so I had to move it - this involved waking me up at 10.30 (bedtime was 8.30!), still slightly drunk, and very very very cranky...! Sigh.

Arrived - food, beer!

Arrived to find to my dismay that it was almost dark, so my simple and elegant plan for navigating visually to the lodge in Paia was already outdated. Still, no customs or other nonsense since we're already in the States. The van, yeah van, is at A3 which turns out to be about a mile away. And did I say it's dark?

Managed to find cash to pay the parking, and also to find the way, trying to stay in the apparently random speed limits-probably my efforts were more likely to attract attention than not!

Parked the van on the street in Paia after there were no obvious spots by lodge-that involved much turning around and toing and froing. Guy and others already sat around drinking beer, so after a welcome shower it was off to the Flatbread Confor pizza and more beer. Marv.

And so to bed, having experienced the longest Saturday of my life, during which the sun was up most of the time. 11 hours behind UK here, so yes, a 35 hour day. Mmm.

YVR wakes the dead

Just lying here hoping to quell the fluttery tired edge from travelling, eating, not sleeping, and it's impossible. For some reason announcements at this airport are at about 128db, virtually on the point of pain - I am wearing earplugs and it's like a very Loud Thing. Why? Are west coasters all deaf, or do they only plan to be that way?

A Grumpy Guy

Ps they only seem to do it when they feel like it - shouty bird II just came on then turned the local speakers off, I could hear the shouting elsewhere but not here (hear?!). They do have a horrible warbling pre-announcement tone too...

View from Vancouver airport

An attempt at a photo post from my phone, amazed that any of this works at all! On reflection could have used my lappie but, hey, have try these things.

p.s. Don't think I'll bother with fish n chips at the Pacific Grill again, left me feeling very bilious! A beer was tempting, maybe should have had that and skipped the food...

Getting there...

Sitting in Vancouver airport, four hour wait before the flight to Maui. This is a very lovely place, I dragged myself away from Natalie Portman in Black Swan to check out the Rockies on the way in, beautiful! They completely dominate the landward skyline, have to come back and explore, there must be waves round here somewhere, that's the Pacific dammit!

Right, all set...

It's Friday evening, about to have dinner, packing pretty much done. Have I put enough t-shirts in? Probably not, but I can always get some cool Maui ones, right? Ipod syncing up, loaded a couple of new waxings into the lappie, even got a Faithless live vid ripped on - yay!

Mmm, just remembered the passport. This is a Good Thing. Off tomorrow at 6.30 or something mad, we're expected to checkin 3 hours before it takes off, which is pants. Ah well. Plenty of time to sleep on a 10 hour flight!

Maui - argh!

Just under a week to go - it's Sunday night and I'm off next Saturday. This is a two week trip to the ultimate windsurfing destination, with the Cribster. Am I ready for this?! Who knows... My left arm is still very painful from the tennis elbow incurred in Cabo Verde in Feb, my right ankle still has 3 stitches in it from falling off my bike on the Ridgeway... Let's hope I can hold it together long enough to make it to the flight on Saturday 10 am!

We have been paired up, me with Jurgen, with people presumably very differently sized from each other. Thus we have 3 boards reserved, none of which seem very big, and a bunch of sails that will enable us to always be sailing the right size, as our requirements shouldn't overlap. This all goes in a middle-aged van or mini-van, which I'm picking up at the airport on arrival. Staying at the Nalu Kai Lodge, where we do breakfast ourselves, which is fine by me. 

Chill, John, chill...

Kris said I should just chill. Breathe...