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OG-AZN
Joined: 27 Jul 2009 Posts: Location: Norcal
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Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 10:04 pm Post subject: Hawai'i trip report & video |
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I just got back from a 1 mo. stay on O'ahu. Not really a vacation; I probably had less than 12 hrs. of water time the entire month. I tried to make the most of it though, riding everything from a longboard at Queens to bodysurfing Sandys . I found time to make a new ply paipo the first week of the trip, but didn't get to ride it until almost 2 wks later. Scored a good deal on a half sheet of 1/2" A-B type(probably birch) ply at the local hardware store & used my original paipo from the early '80s as the basic template. I found my old board stuffed in the corner of my parent's garage. Unfortunately, termites got in through one corner of the tail and pretty much hollowed out half the board. The new paipo worked great & developed quite a bit of rocker on its own; probably from sitting unused in the back of an SUV in the Hawaiian sun for so much of the time. The surf during my trip averaged only 1 - 2.5 ft Hawaiian, with a few days with sets up to 4ft at the beginning & end of my stay. It was never flat, but nothing epic. Swells were out of every direction, mostly S - SE, with even a freak 3 ft country swell for a few days.
I only saw 2 other paipo riders during the trip. The first was when I was jogging back to my car after a longboard sesh at Queens. I glanced over at Walls just in time to see a paipo rider score a good one from deep at Graveyards and disappear from view as he went past the Wall. The guy was probably riding a ply board, but I was too far away to tell for sure. The second paipo sighting was at Panics. I stopped there for a surf check on my way home from the airport area. There was a bodysurf contest supposed to be held that day called "Pure Point Panic". Unfortunately the swell wasn't really hitting. With only super inconsistent sets, a few contestants were just free surfing it, so I jumped in too. It was my first time out at this spot in probably 15 yrs. The lack of crowd for an O'ahu Saturday & the sound system playing Hawaiian & Reggae made up for the lazy surf. While I was in the parking lot just about to leave, an older Hawaiian guy showed up & asked me about the paipo in the back of my truck. He showed me his HPD board & asked me if I was going back out. He also assured me it would be ok to paipo despite the signs at the park saying "bodysurfing only". After the waves picked up a bit, I went out and caught a few more on the paipo with that guy. I found out later that he's the father of the bodysurf contest director. Real good people involved with that event.
I put together a little pov video of some paipo riding from my trip. First attempt at using an old standard def GoPro & editing a video. Bummed that some of the better rides didn't come out due to camera or operator error.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR0zroym7yQ
edit: vid looks better here: http://vimeo.com/13729518 |
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kid
Joined: 11 Jan 2010 Posts: Location: Bells Beach
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Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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Looks like a fun trip! Nice board too! _________________ "It's not a beer-belly, it's a displacement hull"
www.deluxepaipo.com |
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mrmike
Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: Location: coronado, ca
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HIpaipo
Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: Location: Oahu,Ewa Beach
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:51 am Post subject: |
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Bummer the wall was pretty good today, 2-4 but kinda inconsistent because of the high tide. South swell is supposed to peak tomorrow with 6 ft waves Is that china walls in your video? If so, how did you get out there, because a while back I heard they closed off a cove you could go out through _________________ " NO SCARED UM, GO GET UM! " |
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OG-AZN
Joined: 27 Jul 2009 Posts: Location: Norcal
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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Hah, that "closure" surprised me on my first session over there. I got in by jumping off the "wall" at the point, but I didn't want to risk damaging my board climbing back out, so I exited through the "tunnel". The first clue was that the ladder was no longer there to climb to the the stairs; there's just a pile of rocks now. When I made it back to the road, I found a chain link fence blocking the exit & a sign saying "keep out " & something like "area unsafe - this right of way will re-open in Oct. 2009." The fence & surrounding wall is easy to scale though, & someone put cinder blocks there to make it even easier. I later noticed a lot of people were getting out by climbing out by "fingers" and walking back up to the point. |
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rodndtube Dolphin Glider
Joined: 06 Jan 2004 Posts: 690 Location: USA, MD, Baltimore
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Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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The aquamarine waters and skies make me miss the tropics so much. So many of these sand bar breaks along the East Coast are so silted up when there is surf that most of the time I can't see the Orange Dots on my Viper fins.
Nice video. Fun. _________________ rodNDtube
"Prone to ride"
I love my papa li`ili`i |
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