You don’t have to sell Maui for SUP – it sells itself. Most of the world’s elite paddlers call it home, the rest call it paradise.
Words Finn Mullen
(This feature originally appeared in the Summer 2013 issue of SUP International. Print and digital subscriptions for readers worldwide are available HERE.)
A combination of innovative shapers, even more innovative athletes and a multitude of breaks have made the island the breeding ground for the cutting edge of our sport. The normally choppy waters have made it equally famous for windsports but swell producing winter storms can sometimes displace the trade winds making for glassy offshore days – I’m eyeing one such week with two back to back winter swells that have me clicking all over the web for a cheap ticket. Long period swells in Hawaii have a lesser element of risk than Northern Europe for a surgical strike trip like this, the weather is more predictable and you can pick and choose from a number of reefs or sheltered spots depending on your skills and energy levels.
It’s basically Disneyland. Flying with kit? No, I’m taking the easy option – rent. It’s a no brainer to avoid excess baggage fees on a short trip and with every surf shop on the island cashing in on the sup boom it’s easy to try that board you always fancied or stick with an old faithful you ride at home like me – the choice is yours and you can take your pick from the most widely equipped rental outlets in the world. For this week
I’m taking my dollars to one of the best in the business – legendary SUP surfer, racer and adventurer Bart De Zwart. His shop, Kanaha Kai, has the boards, Bart has the knowledge – the first you pay for – the latter is free ..perversely it’s also priceless. Day one was a warm up, I’m catching waves just up from Bart’s shop, locally it’s known as Boneyards but the only bones here are my own. Next reef up – Kanaha – has a lot more bodies and is the most popular SUP break on the island. There are whales out the back breaching so close and so high that you can actually hear them.
That’s the beauty of Maui; you can rub paddles with the pros, locals (whales included !) or fly solo. SUP makes the less popular outer reefs accessible and that opens up a greater variety of breaks than the crowded line ups that surfing in Hawaii is more widely known for which may put people off a trip here. The truth is Maui has something for everyone. Sold yet? You should be – in a single day here you can look and learn from the best in the world then turn the inspiration into perspiration at a break to suit your needs. With a low menacingly close to the coast I’m about to test that theory a little more with a trip to Pe’ahi, lovingly referred to by most of the media hungry world as Jaws. SUP here is formative, the good days at Pe’ahi are now well attended by the mix of uberhot underground local surfers and big wave pros as they push the envelope of paddle in surfing.
Bringing a SUP to the line up on these days is a bit like gate crashing a UFC cage fighting party with a Girls Aloud CD – it’s not cool and you will bruise easily. Luckily for it’s not one of those days! A rough mix of swell directions and unfavourable gusty North winds have bumped the faces enough to keep the crowds away but just about possible to catch a few …I think! It’s St Patrick’s Day, so clichéd or not I’m hoping to catch a bit of Irish luck too. I’ve windsurfed here once before; it’s a ridiculously fast wave in a natural amphitheatre that echoes with a cannon like boom as the wave breaks and the the churning boulder lined shore roars.
Intimidating? Yes, and thankfully so. Come here with your humility tuned to 11 for even on a smaller-by-Jaws’-standard-day this wave plays hard as I was about to learn.
On my first waves I struggled to find my balance in the chop and it took me about 40 minutes to cash in my first ride…but the wait only made it sweeter. Getting up to speed to match the wave is the main challenge here, it’s all about head down, paddle hard and try and link in some of the cross chop to give you a bump start for an early push in. The mix of swells added an element of Russian Roulette trying to position for the better formed North peak while dodging the West swells that shutdown the channel and give the XL wipe outs that make Pe’ahi’s moniker of Jaws seem all too apt. Sitting a little further in I knew chances were high that a west set was going to steamroller me at some stage but taking a fall here is part of the deal. My safety net is my friend Maxi and his jet ski. Look closely at any footage of Jaws recently and you’ll see Maxi covering safety and media at a break he has studied up close and personally since the height of the tow surfing boom years. Maxi came here as a penniless Argentinean windsurfer with a passion and a dream.
Since then he’s windsurfed and tow surfed this wave extensively and now lives in a beautiful house nestled in a lush valley a few miles from Pe’ahi, running one of the most professional board repair businesses on the island; a handy man to know! Maxi saved me from more than a few dings to board and body this day but I still lost a paddle on one of the wipe outs. The price of carbon paddles is normally the only reason I need to hang on to them but Pe’ahi has a power greater than my arm or my financial incentive program. Like any good boy scout I’d come prepared. A quick pit stop for paddle number two and some Gatorade and I’m ready to get rumbled all over again. The paddle-in here is all about speed; my technique isn’t pretty in the chop but my back-up paddle is a narrower blade than my normal big wave one. What I learnt was, that gives a better cadence in the chop allowing you to accelerate faster rather than getting knocked back by the bumps in the increased dead time between strokes of the larger paddle. Most of all I also learnt why the majority of Pe’ahi regulars engage in such extreme fitness regimes for a wipe out here tests you in every way mentally and physically, but no challenge, no reward right? My normal wipe out technique is getting a reboot: keeping calm is kind of hard when you’re spinning faster than your average Flymo. Boy Scout time again but my double O’Neill flotation vests are getting me out of Dodge even if I do look like a Sumo with a fat suit on. Kicking out on a relatively clean face I’m happy to call it my last wave of the session. I make a note to train harder and swim more laps at home but not before a reward of Guinness braised beef and mash, it was St Patrick’s day after all 🙂
Après lunch I hiked down to the cliffs to take a look for the paddle, Pe’ahi is considered a sacred place by the native Hawaiians and the sense of importance is profound. Surfing here is young but the wave, the place, it’s old, beautifully untouched and a hike sensitively made down here on any day has a reward, even if this time it wasn’t the $300 / 1.9 metres of carbon I was hoping for. The shore here is covered in boards from wipe outs past – the broken tail of pro surfer Danny Fuller’s gun sat between some rocks with a heartfelt inscription on the stringer to his past friend, humble big wave charger and family man Sion Milosky, who tragically drowned at Mavericks in 2011. Pe’ahi has always been a place that fascinated me growing up, it has and continues to be the benchmark in big wave surfing. In Hawaiian Pe’ahi means to beckon and sitting out the back you can’t help think of the legacy and legends it has brought to so many surf sports. Recovering after a session here you start to reflect once the adrenaline wears off and as I read Danny’s words ‘live like Sion’, they strike deeply.
Three days later I was back at Pe’ahi, another good sized Pacific swell had brought it to life, this time there were more takers. Opting to sit out the morning session which looked super windy offshore and too strong to sup, I watched Zane and Connor prone paddle into a few bombs to show just how well rounded as watermen these two Maui young guns are. Chuck Patterson showed his metal by taking it on with his sup, with the strength of the offshore it was an extremely technical paddle but to a man who has water-skied down the face of waves here I guess his limits are higher than mine. Chuck later told me how it hadn’t been so windy when he launched at daybreak and modestly confessed he was happy to have just got a couple and survived.
With the wind showing no sign of dropping off it was time to hook up with my Starboard team mates who were assembling at the popular break of Lanes further down the coast. Up on duty were Scotty McKercher, Dany Bruch and Iballa Moreno. It was 2 to 3 times overhead with bigger sets – the narrowest board the trio were on was 31.5 inches, the widest 33! A 15 second winter calibre swell in Hawaii I’m pretty sure wasn’t in the design brief for these boards but the team didn’t seem like they cared too much for design briefs as they continu-ally took some insane drops for boards of that size. Most impressive was Iballa who was riding a prototype small wave fish type sup in anything but small surf. I’ve always been a big fan of Iballa and her sister Daida who have dominated women’s wave sailing for over a decade. Iballa has crossed over her natural surfing skills to sup and her DNA was on show for all to research. Also making an appearance was one of the few women to windsurf Jaws, Katie McAnena from Ireland on her Naish 7’6’’ who also showed it wasn’t all about the board or indeed the boys! That’s something else a vistor will notice about Maui, there is just as many women rippers as men; exhibit A – local girl Paige Alms who is a regular at Pe’ahi.
The line up is filling up fast with a crew that’s reading like a who’s who of standup: Dave Kalama, Michi Schweiger, Chuck Patterson (along for a second session of craziness) and Maui’s next generation of rippers, Connor, Zane, Noah Yap and Kody Kerbox. Just another standard day on Maui where you share waves with the very best in the sport. Front row fan-bombing aside the best part of this is what I call progression by osmosis. Spend time in the water with such an elite crew and your game naturally gets raised for free, not much chance of a knockabout with Rooney and Ronaldo unless Alex
Ferguson’s your gym buddy!
Another day of the same followed before the Pacific wave machine took a breather for a while and it was my time to head home having caught the two swells I came for. The flights back to Europe normally depart in the late evening so you can grab a sunset surf before jumping on the plane with the salt water still dripping in your hair. With all the main shops right by the airport you can even grab some last minute mall surfing if you need it too, which is handy as I left buying some goggles to kick start my new training program until 30 minutes before check in closes 🙂
Travelling for me is about meeting old and new friends, scoring waves and being inspired to mix up your technique and routine at home. Trips to Maui never fail to deliver on these, the only catch is the cost but what better way to smile your way through a shift at work paying off that melted credit card then remembering, and not dreaming, about a trip to sup paradise? SUP
“ My normal wipe out technique is getting a reboot: keeping calm
is kind of hard when you’re spinning faster than a Flymo “
Top 5 places to SUP in Maui
1- Kanaha – fun and mellow reef break right by the airport – most popular surf sup spot on the Island
2– Lanes – left hand reef break located beside Ho’okipa beach park – where the pros go to train.
3 – Sugar cove / Baby beach Maui – located just North of Sprecklesville beach a good option when it’s blown out and Kai Lenny’s local 🙂
4 – Maliko Gaulch downwinder – the original Maui North Shore downwind run – so popular it even has its own taxi service! – www.moorewatertimemaui.com
5 – Lahaina – for 1-2 foot sup surfing heaven check out the multitude of small reef breaks in West Maui that line the road from Kihei to Lahaina – this is the stuff Hawaiian shirts were made for 🙂
Flights
My flight for 1 week mid March was £649 with United Airlines London-Maui via Los Angeles and prices range from £649 to £849. Peak holiday seasons prices go up as do prices for most things on Maui so best avoided if possible. United or American airlines are generally considered the 2 best airlines to fly to Maui with. United is slightly more surfboard friendly with charges of $200 Maui – London for a SUP. Flight routings are normally via Los Angeles or San Francisco on the West Coast so why not break the trip up with a quick stopover in California?