I only got back from 2 weeks in the Philos yesterday and the waves pumped the whole time. The last place we were at (up north) will be getting sprayed from this swell. Its always hit or miss but this was the best trip so far.

The site looks good too Craig. Couldve done with the WAMS while were there!

Craig, something that I can't ever recall is two typhoons meeting up with each other after following a different track. I've seen typhoons form close together and merge but this week we have Francisco who headed west and made a virtual 90 degree turn north, then we've got Lekima (No.28) who formed later and tracked pretty much northwest the whole time and they are forecast to meet each other on the 26th directly over me here on Honshu.

Francisco has been downgraded to 'strong' while Lekima has been upgraded to 'violent' at 905 hPa at 9pm tonight.

Surfwise, these typhoons haven't been too kind to us, either spinning off way down south and the swell too south to make it to us or they've gone right over top of us with giant swell and accompanying wind and rain.

Last week, Wipha whipped it's way across us and we got some good waves in the overhead range at a very sheltered spot. This weekends looking the same.

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/

How do you put pics up? I have a couple of Wipha's swell taken from a cliff top. I'd have to say the swell would be 20ft+ and it's about a 50kt offshore. Pretty wild.

will the china surf comp at Hainan get any swell from these systems ? comp is on now I think .

Which comp Udo, the ISA Games are in Jan and the ASP longbarders are next month. A local comp?

I thought there was a longboard comp [womens ?] on now or within days

You musta seen the announcements. The ASP issued a few pressers about next month's comps - Swatch Girls Pro and some other l/boarder comp. 

Can you walk me through how to paste the photos?

I can open a forum page as suggested but I don't have flickr or any of those file sharing things.

The wife is good at that sort of stuff.

I'm out the door now but I can send them from my phone too. Or, I can email them to Swellnet and you can put them up.

Not super quality, just taken with my mobile but I'd like you to see them.

Will do.

Prob, early afternoon today.

Saw some great footage from that area yesterday and we are now waiting to hear from our friends how they are managing. Thy have avoided he worst of the last couple but this one appears to be heading straight for them!

Pics probably tonight now, been pretty busy. They aren't that spectacular, you kinda had to see it with your own eyes.

BB, hope all is well down there with your mates.

Francisco is probably just about on top of them by now.

Wipha last week smashed the Izu islands but the deaths came as result of landslides. We had some signs and things blown over, some localized flooding and a few damaged roofs (rooves?) but most of all it was just amazing to see the ocean about as angry as it gets.

Send them anyway Zen. It would be good to see regardless of quality.

Do you have any areas nearby that get good away from the brunt of such massive storms and associated swell? Novelty places like Sydney Harbour and Broken Bay etc that only work with massive swell? Or do you sit it out and wait for things to settle down?

Fitzy, we've got a local place called 'Kiddies Corner' that is a little novelty wave but only works on low tide and has to be giant. That's our local go-to spot when huge but I've never bothered with it.

There's a couple of others, but the most impressive place is up north and is very fickle. You need a giant (10ft+) south to East swell and North to NW winds, tide has to be perfect, everything has to be perfect. It would be lucky to break well once a year, sometimes it's too big and closes out, other times not big enough and is just a giant straight-hander shorey. Other times it's just too bloody scary even though it looks doable.

But, when it all comes together, it is amazing, a bit like a cross between Super tubos and Puerto Escondido. Thick, round, crazy sand bottom barrels. It can be frightening and I have to say more than once I haven't had the wantons to paddle out.

Coincidentally, it is also the place that I had one of my worst wipeouts in recent memory- a genuine two wave hold down and flogged within an inch of my life. I thought I was going to drown. I still get shivers thinking about it.

Hi zen we should know tomorrow how things have gone down there. We have been watching NHK news on SBS so we have seen the landslides. I don't know about the rest of Japan but Kyushu seems to be basically one large land slip zone with virtually every slope showing evidence of past events even those heavily forested. I suppose the moral is don't build at the bottom of a hill. Take care in all that swell!

Thanks for putting up the pics Craig.

I should explain, the pics are of the giant swell, and the bloke in the foreground of one of them is Californian expat ripper and photog, Jade Edson. The blue sky pic is what the reef usually looks like on a sunny day (the spot Jade is looking at).

The other shot of the A-frame is that fickle spot I mentioned above doing it's thing.

Francisco is due here on the weekend, looking at a forecast of 20ft @ 16 secs, so probably spectating again- ha ha.

Zen. Cheers for the photos. Amazing system of two storms. Keep us updated and stay safe.

cheers for the photo's zen' be great to sees some other shots,
I wanna surf at 5 's
cheers

No worries Niggly.

Francisco will whizz past us early tomorrow morning.

Sunday is looking all time and there's a pretty good chance No.5 will be on.

Hi zen feeling slightly shaken this morning?

Bit of a non-event BB so far.

Got a lot of rain overnight and looking out the window to the ocean I can't see much due to the sea-spray, so guessing it's pretty big.

The actual typhoon is not forecast to start hitting us till mid-morning and it seems to be quite windy atm but I don't think it's going to be that bad. It's picking up speed and travelling NE really quickly now. So it will move away and most of the damaging wind will be out in the ocean. Once they hit that cold water from the 'Kuroshio' (the 'black current' northern cold current) they die pretty quickly.

Pretty shitty day here actually but that's ok, I'll be at work all day and tomorrow/Monday looking sunny and offshore.

I was thinking more of the 6.8 quake off Fukushima, 2.10 Tokyo time.

Wow, just checked.

Must have slept through it. I do recall something, thought I was dreaming.

It's funny though, since the big one there's been hundreds of tremors. You might be at lunch and one will come, these days people don't even break conversation.

Hey Zen, how did you pull through? Hopefully not too much carnage. Did you score some nice waves?

No worries Fitzy. Everything stayed offshore.

Typhoon Wipha from a couple of weeks ago was the big one (hence the pics).

Saturday was pretty big but I worked all day. Sunday was the day. We had solid 6ft peaks at a local beachie, all day offshore and a max of 6 out all day.

Was hard work though, getting caught inside was a bitch and there were plenty of meaty duckdives to be had. Got rag-dolled on a couple but overall it was pretty fun.

Love this time of the year here.