Perfect Mexican Pointbreaks, with Nate Zoller
Nate Zoller is a road dog. More than most surfers, Nate is traveling for the better part of the year – hunting down swells in places most of us only see on social media and surf sites.
Budget, Backpackers, Surfers, Beach Lovers, Naturalist, Hippie, Sun and Sand worshipers, Off the Beaten Path Paradise! Everyone is welcome at Zipolite!
Playa Zipolite, Oaxaca, Southern Mexico, on the Pacific Ocean. A little bit about my favorite little get-away on this small world of ours.Zipolite, a sweaty 30-minute walk west from Puerto Angel, brings you to Playa Zipolite and another world. The feeling here is 1970's - Led Zep, Marley, and scruffy gringos.A long, long time ago, Zipolite beach was usually visited by the Zapotecans...who made it a magical place. They came to visit Zipolite to meditate, or just to rest.Recently, this beach has begun to receive day-trippers from Puerto Angel and Puerto Escondido, giving it a more TOURISTY feel than before.Most people come here for the novelty of the nude beach, yoga, turtles, seafood, surf, meditation, vegetarians, discos, party, to get burnt by the sun, or to see how long they can stretch their skinny budget.I post WWW Oaxaca, Mexico, Zipolite and areas nearby information. Also general budget, backpacker, surfer, off the beaten path, Mexico and beyond, information.REMEMBER: Everyone is welcome at Zipolite.ivan
Nate Zoller is a road dog. More than most surfers, Nate is traveling for the better part of the year – hunting down swells in places most of us only see on social media and surf sites.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2023/04/12/hawaii-wave-pool-wai-kai-oahu/11594808002/
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To say that surfing has deep roots in Hawaii is an understatement.
Historians believe modern surfing, or people standing on a wooden board while riding a wave, was born on the islands. Everyone, including men, women, children, royalty and common folks, all played on nalu, or waves, on surfboards. European colonizers to Hawaii noted surfing as far back as the 1800s.
Today, the world's best surfers dream of going to Hawaii to ride legendary waves such as Pipeline, Waimea Bay, or Waikiki.
Now on Oahu, there's another, very different wave for surfers.
Hawaii opened its first wave pool on March 25: the LineUp at Wai Kai – wai meaning water and kai meaning sea in Hawaiian – as part of a recreational area located on the west side of Oahu. In the 100-foot wide wave pool, you can forget about the wind, tide, or swell conditions – or reading the lineup among the other surfers. You don't even need to paddle to catch a wave.
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"We envision Wai Kai as a place where travelers can come and experience the island through the eyes of a local," Skip Taylor from Surf Park Management, which manages the wave pool, told USA TODAY. "Visitors can surf, paddle, eat and relax while interacting with the local community. Our goal is to provide an authentic connection to the modern Hawaiian lifestyle."
Wai Kai aims to complement Hawaii's "waterman" lifestyle – where one lives and breathes the ocean – and be a community-gathering space.
As the world's largest deep-water standing surf wave, the pool has also drawn controversy for being built during a drinking water crisis among residents and mere feet away from Hawaii's world-class ocean. (Seriously, you can see two surf spots, White Plains and Hau Bush right past the fencing.)
"For too long, too many of us have forgotten the fundamental understanding in Hawaii that water is a precious and limited resource, a gift that must be protected and used for the good of the community rather than private, corporate gain," said Wayne Tanaka, director of the Sierra Club of Hawaii, who has led legal actions against the water crisis and spoken out against the wave pool.
ChangingEwa Beach
It's not just the wave pool that's new to Oahu's Ewa Beach community, known as a quieter part of the island that's faced rapid development over the past few decades. The Hoakalei Resort, home to the wave pool, is envisioned as a "vibrant and exciting waterfront resort destination and community," according to developer Haseko's website.
Within the past decade, 9 acres have been developed for commercial and residential use. As of April 6, 75% of Wai Kai's staff are Ewa Beach residents.
Second-generation Ewa Beach resident Kanani Langley, who owns a small business called Hau Bush Board Co., said the Wai Kai development "doesn't sit right" with him. His big concern is the development attracting too many tourists into the area, causing traffic and crowds.
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"When all the hype dies down with the locals, that's what we're afraid of, (Wai Kai) will have to cater to somebody else, the tourists, and they're gonna discover a beach over here and make it worse for our beaches," he said. "It's a touchy situation."
The largest part of Wai Kai, the 52-acre-large lagoon – dug and then filled naturally by an aquifer – has a contentious history. In 1990, plans were approved for the lagoon to become a marina, but that idea was scrapped in 2011 – to the dismay of some homeowners, who filed a class-action lawsuit calling the development company "deceptive." The company was ordered to pay up $20 million in 2018.
"After speaking with the hotel industry, waterfront designers and others, it became clear that making a course change would better serve both the company and community," said Craig McGinnis, Chief Operating Officer, Haseko in Hawaii. "Transforming the marina into a lagoon enables us to realize our vision of a dynamic waterfront community in a more timely and efficient manner that more people will enjoy."
The lagoon is only accessible by Wai Kai guests, but a corner is slated to be roped off for the public, Taylor said.
"We weren't trying to recreate the ocean," Taylor said. Ocean surfers will find that out quickly. Built by a company called Citywave, the wave pool is closer to river surfing, like at Waimea River, than ocean surfing. Pumps create a nonstop wave that can be adjusted to different heights and volumes.
The pool is open at its entire 100 feet and allows a maximum of 10 surfers during a 45-minute session. In the future, it will be split up into two or three sections, allowing even more people in one session. Surfers can sign up online for sessions throughout the day.
Pros of riding the wave pool:
Cons of riding the wave pool:
Hawaiian surfer Keala Tomoda-Bannert is one of the pro surfers who tried out the wave as soon as it opened to the public. The Kauai-born surfer has previously surfed other artificial waves as part of her practice. "I think it’s a good addition to Hawaii because, yes, we have incredible surf breaks, but we do have a lot of small or flat days," she said. "Instead of not surfing, you can go surf this wave pool."
Upcoming features for the LineUp include a Wai Kai Academy, where top surfers like Noah Beschen will coach groms (kid surfers). The park is also the first surf park to partner with Surfline to install artificial intelligence technology connected to cameras that will record your waves so you can see footage of yourself surfing to help improve your skills.
Guests can buy one-off sessions, packages and even memberships at Wai Kai. From now until April 30, the rate for one 45-minute session is a discounted $140. After that, it will normally be $210. If you buy a 10-pack for $1,120, each session will cost $112. There will "always" be discounts for locals, Nicole Fuertes, Wai Kai's marketing director, said.
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According to Taylor, construction for the LineUp took over five years, thanks to a delay from the COVID-19 pandemic, and cost $40 million.
Just a few miles away in the neighborhood of Red Hill, drinking water contaminated with "forever chemicals" by the military allegedly poisoned thousands of people, resulting in myriad health issues. The wave pool gets its water from Makakilo Well, not the water from Red Hill, and it said it would regularly test the water and follow regulations to ensure its water is safe.
The Honolulu Board of Water Supply and activists have voiced criticism. Tanaka of the Sierra Club said:
The Red Hill water crisis is reminding us to be mindful, and critical, of the many ways we have forgotten the value of wai: through plantation ditch systems that leak millions of gallons of diverted stream water per day; golf courses and wave pools that use potable water desperately needed by adjacent communities and to ease our housing crisis; and wastewater ocean disposal practices that ignore the potential for beneficial reuse, to the detriment of our nearshore ecosystems and coral reefs.
The LineUp is benchmarked to be a Sustainable Tourism & Outdoors Kit for Evaluation destination, a sustainability certification for surf parks. Wai Kai has several sustainability initiatives in place, such as no single-use plastics, and will partner with local nonprofits for monthly events in the near future.
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"Almost all of the leadership team at The LineUp at Wai Kai are surfers first; we all have a deep connection to caring for the land and ocean," Taylor said.