Spring surf is in the air

Gary Kewley
By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Friday - February 23, 2007
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Its all about partnership in tow surfing: Garrett MacNamara and Kealii Malama at Puena Point during the Bank Of Hawaii North Shore Tow-In Championships
Its all about partnership in tow surfing: Garrett MacNamara
and Kealii Malama at Puena Point during the Bank Of Hawaii
North Shore Tow-In Championships

Aloha, surfers!

It’s hard to believe that we will be seeing spring very soon. The next issue of MidWeek’s weekend edition you read will be dated March 2 - wasn’t it just New Year’s? - and the signs of a new season are already there from Mother Nature:

We don’t see any more “outer reef” swells on the charts.

This is the main reason behind the Bank of Hawaii North Shore Tow-In Championships’ decision to take the relatively small 15-foot swell last Thursday. In fact, February will end up smaller than average. We can only hope for a couple more “freak” swells, but such size will be low probability events. One thing we don’t want is the 40 days and nights of rain like last March/April.


And no more sewage spills, please! Are we ready just in case?

Another sign of spring is south swells - we just had our first one of 2007! Another one is coming around the end of February.

Some hopeful surfers might ask: “Is this a sign of a good summer to come?” The answer is no, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Sure, we may have a great summer of 2007, but these souths are simply unrelated, out of season storms from New Zealand.

What’s really astounding is that other than January ‘07 we’ve had south swells every month since last April! That means that if we get just one south in March we will have had action in Town for 11 months out of a 12-month period! That’s almost as if the summer of ‘06 never ended!


Calling all women! Calling all women! Reminder to get your entries in for the 2007 Women’s Pipeline Pro happening March 6-16! Heavywater mag is presenting this awesome event, and you can get your entries at SURFNEWSNETWORK.COM. Just click on the event banner. Yes, you don’t want to drop in late and pearl on this one !

Speaking of events: Last Sunday night, Surfnewsnetwork’s Surf It/ Save It fundraiser at Las Palmas at Restaurant Row was a tsunami of success! All thanks to those of you who dropped in! We were all helping Surfrider Foundation and Defend Oahu Coalition. Do you know the old saying “Keep the country country”? Add this one: “Preserve our ocean playground!” And both in the short and long hauls. It’s for all of us, our kids and their kids!

If you feel like this is something you could get into and make your mark, please go to http://www.surfrider.org/oahu and www.defendoahucoalition.org.

The surf sounds of Tiki Taboo were unreal - these guys are great musicians and rocked the house. We had surf videos going all night for you to gawk at, like the Pipeline Masters documentary. It’s a must for your surf vid library. There were more give-aways and raffle items than the Surfrider crew had ever seen.

Thanks to BayVi, Crank & Carve, Instinct, HIC, Blue Planet,

Shorebird, 24 Hour Fitness, Soljah, Ocean Club, Patagonia and many other fine, generous companies! Mahalo!


The grand finale was when Wave Riding Vehicles gave away a quad fin surfboard valued at $550! Surfer Cory Payne scored that one while giving back to a good cause. He will now surf like Kelly Slater!

Thank you, Charlie Garrett, for your co-emcee work and auctioning ... Grant Kidani, Surfer Joe, Ron, Mitch, Ronnie et al. ... Willy, Estella and the Las Palmas crew ... Sophia, for your great organizing talents and hard work. Wow, what a night, what an event. Ask anyone there - it feels great.

Got tons of good stuff to cover next week from the Tow In, to the World Tour kick off, the Girls Pipe event, interviews and more! See you here ... and in the surf!

GQ, dropping in 4 U!

PS. Please, send any surf stories and photos to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Stoked!

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