After a week and a half of fun three foot waves on the North Shore of Oahu, a solid N/N/West push hit this morning, building from 4-5 foot early to around 8-10 ft by the evening.

After a week and a half of fun three foot waves on the North Shore of Oahu, a solid N/N/West push hit this morning, building from 4-5 foot early on to around 8-10ft by this evening. The Pipe/Backdoor/Off-The-Wall stretch, the famous, infamous, and occasionally evil triumvirate, looked a bit wonky most of the day with some backwash making things sketchy. There is still some summer sand over these reefs, and this needs to be swept clean before those thick barrel machines can really do their thing.

Steph Gilmore.

Sunset was the pick today, starting off a bit windy with 15 knot gusts from the N/East, but the wind swung a little more east in the afternoon, as well as easing off, and the last hour before dusk was pretty nice 10ft Sunset with some 12ft bombs, though very crowded.

Bede Durbidge.

My mission this trip is to shoot the Rip Curl girls team, a job I get to do quite often for the ‘Curl. I love it, as the lack of testosterone always makes things fun. Less of a muscle flex than it is with the fellas – with all due respect.

Steph Gilmore.

The gang hit Sunset early and Steph (Gilmore), Alana (Blanchard) and Bethany (Hamilton) all had some good ones. The crowd was still light at that stage, but as it became clearer through out the day Sunset was the shit, things ended up hectic. The fact that it was a Sunday only exacerbated the hustle, as the local punters naturally wanted their piece of the earlyThanksgiving pie.

Bethany Hamilton.

After the session, while the girls kicked back over lunch, your tireless reporter bolted to Haleiwa to check out my mate, Pancho’s heat in the Reef Hawaiian Pro. Despite a major crowd pleasing hack, Panch ended up wave starved and Parko (Joel Parkinson) took it out with his usual fluid display. American Tanner Gudauskas grabbing second in the inconsistent 6-8ft surf.

Pancho Sullivan.

In the arvo, I paddled out to shoot Sunset on an esky lid, and hopefully rendezvous with the ‘Curl girls, but only Bethany Hamilton came out. She is awesome; can you imagine taking on 10ft Sunset with only half your usual paddling power?

Beth.

In a sporting world where the word “Hero” is thrown around like confetti to describe people who putt well, or run fast, or jump high for a slam dunk, she is the real thing. She managed to snag a decent one too, dropping into a solid eight footer and flying on down the line.

Beth.

Aussie Bede Durbidge got a screamer as well, and not long after that I got caught by a set, thrashed, and washed half way to the beach and pulled the pin on proceedings.
The swell is predicted to build steadily with a huge spike Wednesday/Thursday, then it will taper off again and hold firm at a similar size to today. It’s lookin’ good!

Words and photos by Dave Sparkes