Ok this picture deserves raccontino, a little story
Today we were supposed to get a hard earned day off from the wind.Yesterday I shot all my bullets (Italian figurative way of saying) since we were supposed to get three days without wind.I checked with Giampaolo Cammarota on his blog were to go surf – SSN was giving massive 3-7+ at hookipa. But Giampaolo gives you bouy readings and webcams, and the new swell wasnt supposed to kick in until later in the day, so I decided to give a shot to hookipa.When I got there quote early for my standards I found hookipa surfwise as good as it gets: 1-3 and glassy.I felt so confident that I mounted my gopro on the board. A thing you don’t do on bigger days if you care about your camera.I had a nice session an possibly something will come out of that cam. I’ve had a few wave. Nothing worth mentioning as there were 20 people out, spread between Green Trees and H’Poko, and more farther towards Pavillion.

What it looks like underwater

A lot by hookipa standard. A friendly chap from southern california local of Topanga, a place I surfed too a couple of times while living in LA, a boy who must have been no older than 13/14 came by and with a grown up grim told me “these people are complaining it’s busy. This is not busy. They have no idea” Well I remember a day at Rincon on a very large north swell – a day that would see most of SoCal maxed out – entering Rincon and working all the way up from being the last one in to taking the top spot on the main peak. I did that not do that of the intention to actually surf, but simply to reduce the number of wave that I’d be getting on the head. That day in that spot I counted hundreds, literally hundreds of surfers.

The wait game

Going back to my session I got up on a few waves with my favourite technique: sitting in the inside with the kids and taking advantage of the leftovers of the other surfers. Of course this strategy comes at expense: you will get all the incoming large sets on the head. if you are sitting deep inside that is the deal.

The fatigue of going out: you can see surfing is more social than expected

The business was worth a few take offs, followed by very short runs. I still don’t have the speed to stand in the right spot on the board, so I tend to loose the wave that eventually closes out on me. But I am improving.

One of take offs

As I ended my session with my third wave, I got out and it was obvious that the wind was picking up. Windguru had sown a dead north shore, but I was on the hill trying to read my book and it was impossible. After half an hour with perfectly glassy conditions the first guy is out.
I decide to go back home and get my gear. Rule of thumb for hookipa: always have your gear in the car, you never know the magics of the North Shore. As I got home I relaxed had a coffee connected with friends back at home and .. an hour wen by.
By the time I was back on spot I could see a lot of action (check Jimmie Hepp album from the 04-05-2019 to judge for yourself

In the water the likes of Browzino, Jaeger Stone, Thomas Traversa. As I was almost rigged, they started to come out. The conditions had become too light even for them. I decide to go in anyways. After 20 minutes to get to the point with 10 knots maybe less of wind I decide to make it back in possibily on a wave. This was the result

The drop: mind you there is close to zero wind. You see that from the crest braking and not being blown at all
Close up
Wave is over

If you want to check out the pow video from the boom – you can see the cam in the close up picture

You can see from the video that there are two top turns that have not come out in picture

If you want to check out the full quick edit of the session, you can find on Vimeo iSurf video channel https://vimeo.com/328873718
Enjoy and keep the stoke alive!