The Week in Review

The Tradewind Beach House continued its impression of Grand Central this week with several more guests coming and going.  In addition to the chaos at our place, the chaos that are the Hawaiian trade winds, raged here every day with a vengeance.  The wind meter was up in the 40 mph range several times which is high even for avid windsurfers but that didn’t stop us from sailing every day, it just added to the aches and pains.  However, despite the aching bodies, the smiles continued to grow as Eric and I are loving having our friends out here to share this incredible paradise. 

Last weekend, Kanaha Beach Park hosted a windsurfing slalom race and freestyle competition.  The slalom race was on Saturday and attracted a few current and former world champions, including USA 3 Kevin Pritchard, who joined the many locals for the event.  Its insane to watch these guys hold down sails that are eight square meters in size in thirty plus knot winds which normally would have us mortals out on sails half that size.  Obviously, the bigger the sail the more power and Pritchard won the race easily on his 7.8 meter sail maintaining speeds over 35 miles per hour.  A guy we know, Malcolm, from Neil Pryde Maui, the windsurfing shop where we do most of our business, participated in the race and came in third and on one reach actually passed Kevin Pritchard which I’m sure was a thrill for him.  Sunday was the freestyle portion of the competition which is much more fun to watch than racing and while most of the freestyle champions are on tour in Europe now we did witness some cool tricks from an up and coming 13 year old throwing loops, several kick ass female shredders and another buddy Darby, also from Neil Pryde Maui, who came out here on vacation over ten years ago and never went home.  Darby put on a simultaneous freestyle and comedy show amongst the many freestylers doing all sorts of tricks.  I normally don’t get into watching competitive windsurfing but it was pretty cool to see some folks, especially some that we know, flying at incredible speeds and throwing tricks right off the beach.  Congratulations Malcolm and Darby.  

Monday, Kris, Mike and I awoke at 4:30 AM to head down to South Maui and catch the first boat out to Molikini Crater for some incredible SCUBA diving.  Molikini is a sunken volcano just off the coast of Maui that creates a semi circular reef and is home to spectacular coral gardens and more sea life than I could have imagined.  Our two dives at Molikini included seeing white tipped sharks, gray reef sharks, moray eels, octopi, barracuda and countless tropical fish and colorful coral.  It was some of the most stunning underwater viewing I’ve ever seen.  Molikini’s one draw back is the daily crowd it draws so getting out on the first boat turned out to be a smart move as by the time we surfaced from our first dive there were thirty or more boats in the area littering the place with divers and snorkelers.  The dive master on our boat then took us to the outside of the wall of the crater for our second dive to get some new scenery and avoid the crowds.  The back wall was an incredible dive as the water is over 300 feet deep, so you have to be careful to hover at about 50-70 feet using your buoyancy control device and avoid sinking to the bottom where you would quickly get the benz.  Thus I spent more time staring at my depth gauge than I did the views but it was quite a thrill to look up 60 feet and see huge waves crashing into the wall’s surface and then look down to see the ocean floor 300 feet below which you could see clearly with the stunning visibility offered in south Maui. 

This week I think we were all quietly hoping for a day of no wind but no such luck as the trade winds continued to howl every day so a few of the boys had to take a day off on their own to rest and to nurse some nagging wounds from the constant pounding on the water.  I managed to sail every day but will soon need some time off to reset the aches and pains.  Kris had a scare after trying a forward loop, getting his ankle rolled as he rotated the board.  As it swelled up at night he thought he might have a nasty sprain and practically had himself in tears thinking about missing out on sailing for the remainder of his month on Maui.  Fortunately, some sleep, lots of Advil and some time off and he was right back to it getting huge air despite telling us he planned to take it easy to avoid the risk of further injury.  Eric, following in Pat and Kris’s footsteps so to speak, tried to patch the cuts on his feet using super glue, something we were taught on last year’s trip in Costa Rica although they call it ‘goma loca’ down there.  Eric must not have paid much attention in Spanish class as he put the goma loca on his feet and immediately threw on his flip flops before the glue had a chance to dry and his flip-flops are now a permanent appendage.  The rest of the crew were all out on the water intermittently including our buddy Mike who is now nailing waterstarts in both directions and even sailing comfortably in the harness.  He leaves here Sunday which I’m sure will not be easy but he met his goals on the water and will now be able to head down to Cape Cod with some new skills in his arsenal.  He also had a small scare as he headed out on Thursday and as he got a ways offshore the wind turned on to nearly 40 mph making it difficult for a sailor with his experience to get going.  He drifted all the way down to Kanaha from Camp One and we sent out a search party of Pat and Kris on the water and Eric and I walking down the shore to find him and help him get back to the beach safely.  He did make it back with the help of the large search party which is good as his pledge status had him in charge of our rib and chicken BBQ for that night so we needed to make sure he returned safely and quickly to his duties.  Congratulations Mike on both the windsurfing progress and a superb BBQ, unfortunately the rib meat did not fall off the bone as promised meaning Mike will maintain his pledge status for another year.

In addition to the boys here on Maui for the annual trip, we were joined this week by Doug’s girlfriend, Laura, Pat’s fiancée, Tina and Eric’s girlfriend Gena (aka G-Money or G$) who all arrived this week.  Gena is Canadian.  All have now spent some time with Craig working on their waterstarts and its been very cool to watch all the progress.  Windsurfing is a difficult sport to learn, and I imagine even more difficult with your boyfriend standing on the beach screaming instructions at you that you can barely hear over the wind but all are picking it up quickly and will soon be blowing past the boys.

While we are having a ball hanging out with our friends and sailing non-stop, one of this week’s highlights came on Tuesday.  Eric, Pat and I had rode 25 miles early in the morning and then Eric and I went straight to the yoga studio for a brutal two hour primary series class.  As the class was wrapping up around 12:30 we could smell the grill going from the restaurant, Jaques, next door and our hunger was peaking at that point after the long morning of exercise.  We caved immediately after class and headed straight there for a couple Ho’okipa burgers.  We’d been told that Jaques was the place where all the famous windsurfers hang out but hadn’t experienced until we looked up and saw Robby Naish sitting two tables over.  If Josh Stone is the Pedro Martinez of windsurfing (see issues I of the J.E.W.) then Naish is the Babe Ruth as he put this sport on the map.  We confirmed with the waitress that it was in fact him and while we never spoke with him or even made eye contact, I like to think we capped off another fantastic week by “partying” (I.e. sitting near) with Robby Naish.  We hear he will be sailing at Camp One in July so we will surely have some video and another stalking violation if that turns out to be true.

Congratulations to our Brazilian readers on their fifth world cup!

Comments from week 8

Jeff, Lyme disease, CT

"First let me say that, although I look forward to each new issue of the J.E.W., it's arrival in my in-box every Monday morning has NOT helped my already poor attitude at work.

First off, Pat is not, and never was, a "triathlete"... I think most of
the CT boyz would agree that "tri-dork" is a more fitting description, or "ADVENTURE boy" (ask him about his latest endeavors in adventure racing).

Second, and more importantly, I was saddened to read that you let Pat kick your butts on the Sunday ride. The week he left for Hawaii I had pretty much burst his ego bubble by riding his smelly arse all the way up the hills in his own backyard. And now you guys go and drop like little girls on the first hill. What was the problem, were your skirts too tight?

In an effort to help mend you bruised egos, let me share some things you may not have noticed (while gasping for air).
1. big things roll faster (especially downhill) -- o.k., I know this is
kind of a little guy comment, but you guys have damaged the
"pound-for-pound" strength theory (Pat can provide details).

2. you'll be surprised how much a wedding ring will slow down a big guy...I remember back in the day when Tom was strong too!

3. how much coffee did Pat drink prior to the ride... coincidence?

4. what about his new aerodynamic hair cut?

Well that's it for comments from the disgruntled little guy who still
happens to have a job."