I went in January 2010 and highly recommend going in the winter, particularly to the North Shore where the surf was incredible and world class surfers were still there.
After the December surfing contests are over in December, the crowds leave and you have access to all of the beaches. I was able to park 100-feet from the Bonsai Pipeline, walk to the beach and take this picture:
Surfing "The Pipe"_MG_2886_DxO5D_raw by
dcstep, on Flickr