Capturing the Moment

Wave of the day at Dumps, Maui Left at Lahaina Breakwall Right at Freight Trains The waves keep coming! We finally got a big south swell here in Maui and surfers are loving it! It does make taking people snorkeling and driving boats difficult but I love the summer surfing here. You always hear about the north shore and winter surf but few people know that Hawaii's summer swells can bring in pretty big waves from the south. I have been surfing along the south and west shores which have been getting pounded by large surf over the last four days. In fact three boats moored near Mala pier broke free in a really large set and crashed up on the beach. The waves destroyed the boats quickly after. Luckily all of our boats have been doing fine and we have even been running trips. Molokini is still clear and we found a couple spots around Lanai that havn't been murked up too badly. I am so glad that we got a good early season south swell this year since last summer was so s...

  On a hunch I booked it down to Dumps yesterday after work just in case there were waves big enough to surf. Dumps is a beautiful wave with turquoise water that forms a steep left of shallow reef. It works on big south swells sent up from storms in the southern hemisphere so it is mainly a summer time wave. During the winter everyone flocks to the north shore to catch big waves sent down from big storms up near Japan and Alaska.   You can imagine my exuberance as I walked around the last corner of the path to Dumps just in time to see a set of three perfectly formed, head high lefts peeling into Dumps....and one guy out! I literally ran the rest of the way over the lava rocks to get to the entry before jumping in the water and furiously paddling out to the lineup. I couldn't believe my luck. The other surfer did say that was the biggest set he had seen yet, but luckily I was in for a lot of luck during this early south swell surf session!  Making friends in the lin...