Surfing Waves

I have a flight book to fly in Tues night. Was planning to camp n surf 9 days. But the forecast that showed beautiful weather, swell and offshore went 180 today with plentry of rain n onshore wind now. It also seems they are still in major flood recovery with the road beyond Hanalei closed. Bummer.

Rain and onshore wind depend on where you are on the island at the moment. It's always offshore somewhere however the road past Hanalei is still closed

But swell wise? Is there really any surf on the south shore this time of year even with no forecast Swell? Lots of N, NW, NE swell, but also lots of NE winds which is onshore - cross shore it looks like

I don't know but there was a south swell a little while ago. I never go to check out the surf here but get reports from people I meet. I have heard that Hanalei is relatively uncrowded due to the lack of roads. NE is typical tradewinds and not bad for Hanalei. Now camping situation I have no clue.

There is a wind swell on the east side but I am not going out today due to sewage getting into Wailua River and the Bay. I hope to go tomorrow

Does the south west tend to pick up any NW swell? Wed n Thurs look great for northshore n Polihale but beyond that looks like mostly N swell NE wind

The island is round and swells wrap around so definitely can happen. I don't know which breaks might be the best in a NW swell. I have not surfed the west or south side enough. There are lots of west facing reef breaks on the south side and south west sides. Years ago when I went looking for surf the swell would taper off as it wrapped around so if the swell is big enough then there will still be good sized waves in the wrap and in fact some may prefer the wrap rather than the direct swell which is too big for them. I have never looked at swell reports. These days I don't even look for surf I just go to the closest beach from my house and surf whatever is there. So when you are talking swell predictions and such I am of no use. Back when I used to surf all around the island there were only verbal reports. You call someone and ask them or just go look for yourself. You might check out the links on this page and compare predicted surf to the cams http://www.kauai-webcam.com/

I just heard to day the surf has been really good at Hanalei

Worked out well overall.. The weather on the north was pretty shite, a lot of rain and the rivers turning all the water murky. The points were crowded and competitive and cold. However on the south side I scored pgood surf around Poipu and Kekaha, along with sunny weather and clear waters with few surfers. Busy though with tourists and grid lock traffic all over the island, a lot more than back in 2011 when |I last visited.

Campgrounds are pretty primal and I wouldn't so much as call them campsites, I ended up just sleeping in the SUV I rented for 9 nights all over.

Hot damn though some of those tweens can shred. It was a humbling experience surfing some of the breaks whether competing at the points or getting pulverized by the heavy pitching beach breaks

oldmansurfer wrote: Back when I used to surf all around the island there were only verbal reports. You call someone and ask them or just go look for yourself.

Ah ha ha...that reminds me of college days when I'd call the Santa Cruz information line to hear about the waves. They were all to happy to take a look and give a "thumbs up or down."

I used to call this one friend in Hanalei and after a bit I learned to read between the lines of what he was saying. If it was too big or too small for him he would say an accurate report but if it was just right and good conditions he would say it was junk. It was the tone of voice that used to give it away. He was so surprised one day to see me in the surf when he had said it was junk Initially I went because I liked junk waves that size so I came for those but ended up with good surf. Guys passing in cars with surfboards heading away from the surf would give a thumbs up or thumbs down but even then I think I like thumbs down days so I never turned around because of that. There was only one road and it was one lane part of the ways back in those days.