Hangin' Wit Da Monk Seals

What a spectacular day here today. Last night, what NOAA calls an "Extra-Large-To-Giant" swell hit the Hawaiian Islands. So big that the North Shore was completely closed out, "Condition Red". Unsurfable, although those with the ability and equipment could tow in.

The waves were so huge that they wrapped completely around the island to Kihei, so I threw my board on the car, drove over to a spot called Guard Rails near Lahaina, and rode glassy little head-high waves all morning. Blue sky, glassy waves, and a couple of big fat lazy Monk seals dozing in the sun on the beach. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.




Monk seals are like housecats. They eat and they sleep, that's about it. They even have whiskers like housecats.

I topped off a great surf session by climbing into my hammock, making like a Monk seal, and dozing most of the afternoon away. A few more days like this one and I just may recover from 3 weeks without sleep at the World Equestrian Games.

From Pat Caldwell's O'ahu Surf Forecast:

The NNW component was generated by fetch starting late last Friday over 1200 nm long and 900 nm wide stretching from near Kamchatka to about 40°N latitude NNW of Hawaii, or about 1000 nm out, by mid Sunday. The winds in the 325-345 degree band ranged from gales to storm-force, with the strongest winds toward the eastern side of the Hawaii swell window. The jason altimeter on Sunday validated wave model expectations of seas over 40 feet in the patch aimed NE of Hawaii. For seas pointed toward Hawaii, heights were to 30 feet in an area about 1000 nm away late Sunday. Long period swell of 14-19 seconds from this source is expected to fill in locally Monday night, peak on Tuesday, and slowly drop on Wednesday.