Caught up with local surfer and cartoon artist Andre Clarke, to find out a bit more about the Grom Reaper: "Everyone knows you as a bit of a Rincon regular, but probably didn’t know you were such a rad artist until that Grom Reaper comic strip you did that’s just featured on the back page of the latest edition of the Boardtalk magazine. Is art what you do for a living? Yep indeed. I have my own little agency - Synergy Solutions; specialising in graphic design (print, multimedia etc), copywriting, digital art and illustration - the works. And a bit of lecturing on the side - in above disciplines. How did you get into cartooning and graphic art? As a lightie I was as much into art of the sci fi, horror, fantasy kind as I was into the beach, and being a creative little bastard, I always hoped I'd be doing something along those lines for a living. Although you often spend tons of time behind a computer, you have certain freedoms (ahem... seeing the locals down at Millers during average Joe working hours!) A more regular desk job would've killed me off long ago! Have you done the graphics on any of your own boards? Fer sure! Check out my Poseidon art for my current board. As surfers our boards are our tools/paintbrushes - customising them is a way of making them personal! How long does it take to put something like that comic strip together? Take us through the process. Admittedly, my pesky perfectionist streak slows the process down often! But in a nutshell, Grom Reaper started off like this: 1. After a very basic brief; I started brainstorming: story ideas and concept; what each character should look like; the look of the town, scenery and the environment - all based on the kind of tale I wanted to tell. Everything was just in my head at this stage. 2. After that, it was pencil to paper; lots and lots of roughs, trying to draw the guys I saw in my head before trying to get the character models correct. 3. Then - character model time. These are basically unique to comics - you gotta draw your characters from varying angles and with different expressions, so when you draw the comics for real you have reference for consistency and accuracy. Notice, at this point, I haven't even started on the comics proper yet! 4. Which leads into step 4 - the actual comics! There are basically two aspects here - the story - and the illustrations. Most important is the story - that needs to be sorted before you start drawing (some ou's are really pedantic here and have planned it out to the last detail, other guys shoot from the hip and are more loose with their planning - I fall somewhere in the middle I guess). So assuming story is sorted - rough layouts of each comic panel first. 5. After your roughs - time to draw the final panels. For Grom Reaper; I drew in soft pencil first, then finished off and polished with a harder drafts-pencil :). No ink for me this time! 6. Then, scan them in - (groms, for those thinking about doing graphic design, photography etc - scan at 300dpi and actual current size!) in grayscale. 7. Then - take out a bank loan for Photoshop! Yes, PS is the best - for a reason! Open your scans in Photoshop, create new layers for your airbrushing; make sure you have converted the file to colour - and start painting away! (Hint: I use pencil/airbrush, and layer transparency to create the clouds/water effects.) Use special filters sparingly with actual art. 8. Tear hair out and swear constantly because it's taking so long and you have other work to do. 9. Finish off, flatten each panel, and place them in sequence in InDesign. (Bank loan required again haha!) Smile because you're almost done! Frown because you're beginning to agonise over font, legibility and fitting everything in. 10. Tear hair out and swear constantly because it's taking so long and you have other work to do.
11. Finally finish, and send off to printers with a big grin! 12. Tear hair out and swear constantly because printers require another format. 13. Reformat, then send off to printers again. Rejoice because they are happy with the technical aspects, great success! 14. Go for a celebratory surf! 15. Tear hair out and swear constantly because it's PE and it's pretty damn flat and gutless for your celebratory surf... What will we be seeing the Grom Reaper get up to in future? Hell yeah - time permitting haha! If the name "Grom Reaper" wasn't hint enough, Ben's nickname "Bones" should also hint at what's to come! Basically, our young grom will be getting his dark powers properly soon, all because of an accidental Faustian pact he signs up for! (google Faustian kids, it ain't a happy ending kinda story)" Anyone need some kiff design or artwork done? Give Andre a holler on andre.synergy@gmail.com Make sure you buy the next copy of Boardtalk magazine to see what the Grom Reaper gets up to. Anyone who's been to Hobie beach lately will have come across some pretty cool sand art. You gotto love what these guys are doing when their sharks have polystyrene teeth - bite me any day of the week with those! Just so the shark doesn't think he's the king of the beach - there's a big-ass rhino right behind him, complete with anti-poaching slogan. A cheetah, an elephant, a crocodile and Jesus round up the sculptures for the day. Brothers Wayne & Duncan are two local guys who epitomize the "give him another chance" philosophy. They went off the rails a bit in their youth and ended up in a rehab centre in East London. There they met a Dutch guy who taught them some art skills - which they are now using to great effect to give regular beach goers a smile. Wayne says they come to the beach for a month or so at a time, sleeping in a small tent they pitch next to the wall. They subsist on donations from the public - half of which they are saving towards their dream of building an arts & crafts centre in their township, so that they can teach kids art - keeping them off the streets. They'd love to get a sponsor to help them set-up the centre.....so if your company is looking for a kiff community project to get involved in - this would be a rad one to get off the ground.
The plan would be to recycle the communities waste into art - turning cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, wire and tins from rubbish into art and functional items. Really cool to see guys turning sand and water into some impressive sculptures. Pop down to the beach and check them out, and help the guys out with a donation. Local is always lekker. And not much could be more lekker than locally made surf wax. Introducing Zen surf wax, made right here in PE by father-son duo John and Josh Enslin. Caught up with Josh and fired him some questions: Where did the idea to make your own surf wax come from? My Dad, John Enslin, is the scientist and inventor behind Zen Surf Board Wax. I simply created the name and authentic look and feel and brought the wax to life. John Enslin is the master behind the formula. Dad surfs and introduced me to the world of surfing at an early age. Back then we lived on a farm in Green Bushes and surfed on weekends, days of onshore were spent playing with sheep/running after chickens and riding horses. Dad owns a factory that makes dental wax. Back in the early days he used to make the dental wax and candles on the farm, and being a surfer he started playing around with formulas and using different wax formulas on his boards. Mainly because traditional surf was expensive and being out on a farm it wasn’t easy to come by. So that’s how it started … long before I even knew what wax was. Is it something that’s been a long while in development? Dad and I have been working on it for the last 3 years. He’s the brains behind it and I have been testing it in different conditions. Overall I reckon Dad has officially been experimenting with surf wax formulas for about 20 years and made over 250 different samples that I know off! So yah, it’s not an overnight thing! Must have been a real trial and error process? One day I would slip and get over it, and then tell my dad how “not good that batch was!” I would get a call at 6am the next morning with him telling me that new samples were in the post box. He would have worked all night burning the proverbial midnight candle! Kitchen get trashed in the process or did you boil it up in the garage!? My dad started on the farm in a garage with chickens running around, but now works in his factory he has built up with state of the art machinery. So are you allowed to tell us what’s in it or is a secret recipe like Coke & Kentucky Fried? It will be a well-kept Enslin secrete for a long time. Let’s just say you would be amazed! Love the holder it comes in, specially the lil removable wax comb inside. Is that a first for the wax market? Dad and I had a common goal - to make a very sticky wax. At one stage too sticky! But it was still an incomplete product. I knew to make it more marketable in the surf industry, with all the established brands out there, we had to make it more than just a wax. It had to become a “lifestyle product with more than one official use.” It was Shelz, my fiancé, that come up with the “wax comb” idea and then my scientist of a father put it all together - developing a mould and making it from scratch and housing it in the wax container as a “all in one product.” Will we be able to buy refills for the box? Yip, that the catch, you can only have so many containers. Re-Fill packaging is designed and we just waiting to hit print. We want to get the containers, which are the “core of the product” into the market place and gradually start filtering the re-fills in. I’ve seen it in a coupla stores in PE, Jbay and St Francis – is it local only or available countrywide? Billabong South Africa are stocking it, my dad and myself are really humble about this as the surf industry has so many ‘products and brands”. Billabong has given us a break into the market, and will stock it in their Billabong retail shops for now. What makes your wax different from other blocks on the market? Tell us why we should buy Zen! I could tell you we did tests between Zen and 4 of the best waxes in the world. Over and over again Zen and Wax brand “X” topped the charts, but that’s our tests and was proof for us that it was a great product. Zen really is right up there and is the only wax that comes with a “complete package.” The Wax container with wax will not melt and mess in surf bag or car sets or dash board or on the ground. The wax comb is also a detachable device perfect for water use, as it’s small and can be kept in your wetsuit. We’re planning to add a fin key to the unit as well. So why buy 3 different products when Zen is heaps cheaper and comes with the full package? Maths 101! Zen are also offering a percentage of sales to development surfing in the country so we have a rad little initiative forming which we’ll keep you posted on. I’m not going to come out and say Zen is “the best”, cos that’s just not “Zen!” Every surfer prefers a certain feel of wax, but try it - cos you might like it! Why Zen?
Zen meaning “a state of coolness only attained through a totally laid-back type of attitude”. Both empty and full Beginning and end Nothing and yet everything Zen is a lifestyle not a brand. Authentic natural functional product for surfers. Have you got some positive feedback from guys who have ridden it? Heaps of oaks are raving about it! Coupla guys have won contests on it. At the Vic Bay Quad we had it in a little white container and oaks would come past and give it a “rub”, half a day later we had random oaks coming up to us asking in a quiet voice “Got any of the white magic left?” It created a buzz and some really top names surfed it and were impressed with it. So will the Zen label be sticking to wax? Or any other product lines that might be hitting the market? My dad has a couple of tricks up his sleeve.....! Note that at the moment Zen wax is COOL water surf wax - which means it rocks in water temps of 14-19C. Cold and warm water blocks will be hitting the shelves soon. Wanna order some? Tune John on info@zensurfboardwax.com New kid on the block. Well, new food truck in the parking lot. Meet Warwick McKiever, the chap who’s gonna be behind your pre and post-surf fuel-ups. How long have you had Coffee’s Up? I decided to become “Haz Bean’s” the official name of the business with “Coffee’s Up” as the surfing spot trailer. It took a while to find the trailer shell, which I then had modified. So I’ve been trading for about three weeks in total now. What was the motivation behind trying the food truck concept in PE? I’d been chef’ing at my hotel in the UK for a number of years, and noticed this type of trailer-based business becoming popular there & in Europe. Thought it was an interesting concept if done correctly. I’d started with the idea of driving a 40 foot RV through Africa, which would then have become Coffee’s Up. However the shit hit the fan in the Middle East and northern Africa, which scuppered that plan. After a few months back in PE, and looking for work in the safari industry without much success, I started browsing and looking for trailers. Eventually found the shell which I then kitted out. You have a degree in botany – how did you end up going from plants to being in food & catering? After getting an honours degree in botany at UPE, I became a game ranger/lodge manager at Shamwari for nine years. That threw me into the hospitality industry. I built a lodge in Zambia for an owner, and when that came to an end I moved to the UK. I managed a small hotel in Kendal, but ended up buying a hotel in the Snow Belt near Glenshee (Scotland). I had trained as a chef in the Navy, where I worked in the Submarine Base. That, combined with watching the ex-executive chef of Sun City (who worked for me in Kendal) prepare food; I decided to become the chef in my hotel. You seem to know quite a few of the ballies on the beach, did you grow up in PE? Being at UPE where a couple of my mates (Bunny and Tablet) were surfers, I met a number of other dudes like Gavin Macaulay, Zibi and Chappy during the first year. Through the years of the early “book club” I met Barry Heasley, Randall Davies and Mark Reed amongst others. I never became a surfer after slicing my leg with a skeg at J-Bay, but took up wave skiing, until I broke my board at Muizenburg during a naval compo. Give us a quick run-down on what the guys can grab to drink or chow? I offer good coffee and filling, tasty food for a good price. There are a number of different coffees and teas available. A well-priced breakfast roll may become a best seller in the future. Things will change as I gauge the needs of the community. Summer drinks like non-dairy fruit shakes and Glühwein in winter. What are your best sellers so far? Cappuccino’s, filter coffee, muffins and a pizza thing I make. The food items will change with the seasons. Is the plan to be permanently based at the Pipe car park? What times are you open? Yes, I am now officially licensed for the car-park at Pipe. I will be in the car-park from sunrise to sunset, depending on certain factors. I may not be there on Mondays. How’s trade been so far? Busy? I have to thank the community at Pipe for their support and friendliness. I have only been there for a few days but was there during the Grom trials this weekend, which was great. I don’t drink coffee so got Margot to be my official coffee taster; she had the filter coffee and said it was lekker. I tried out the hot chocolate – and can see this being a winter post-surf winner. Bonus is that you can get your drinks in a proper cup and saucer if you’re gonna drink it there and not take away. Civilised kinda stuff for a beach carpark!
And a huge bonus for surfers is that you can leave your car keys and cell phones with Warwick when you head out for a surf. Catch waves without the stress, knowing that your stuff will be kept safe and not be affirmative shopped. No charge for the service, but I reckon it’d be good form to at least buy some coffee or a snack every once in a while to say thanks! So there ya have it. Pipe’s got a new local! If you’d like him to stay local please give him your support. (PS if you leave your cell with Warwick please turn it onto silent, else the poor ou’s gonna end up in a loony bin listening to a whole bunch of phones beeping & ringing incessantly!) Not a helluva lot of surf during the past week, but lekker weather and bath-tub warm water have meant at least peeps can get wet in baggies and boardies. Jamie Morris has garnered himself a whole new female fan base thanks to some shirt-free board-riding.
Spots starting with "S" seemed to be picking up whatever tiny waves were about. Sards and Seals threw up enough of a lump to get wet on. Some of the JBay lighties went photo-bombing with Zag sharp shooter Greg Chapman (aka Chappypix) over the weekend, and Dylan was boosting all over the place. Perfect weather to de-wax boards as it takes about 30 seconds and you go from a solid gooey mess to a liquid gooey mess. Re-waxing is no problem in the sticky weather if you know a trick or two - just grab a small jug and fill with water and ice-cubes. All you gotto do is keep dipping your bar of wax in the cold water as you wax your board and it goes on in perfect lil bumps instead of a streaky smear. Pour a bit of the cold water onto the deck of your board whilst you wax too, same effect - bumps instead of smears. Sunny skies mean kiff weather to do some street art - and Joff is tackling the skatepark with his spray cans. It's going to look so rad to have it sprayed with some funky artwork instead of Tom, Dick, Harry and Koos tagging their names all over it. Forecast is looking a bit bleak again for the bay this week. Typical PE conundrum - beaut weather = bogger all surf. Pretty sure most of you will have seen the cool street art that has just gone up on the wall at the Something Good car park - the one immortalized by the infamous "Don't live here, don't surf here" graffiti a while ago. I caught up with Joff, one of the artists behind the spray can, to find out a bit more about the project, and street art in PE. The wall you guys have just done at Something Good looks amazing, how did that come about? A few of us have been talking for a while about pushing street art in PE , and have been doing more & more live art shows around the city. So we teamed up with some of our favourite artists. One of the artists, Nathan Sanan, spotted the wall made contact with the right people and we began to paint! Myself, Quintin Weyer, Nathan Sanan & Pola Maneli did the wall together. Must have been a pretty cool experience doing live art – get you get any interesting interaction with the public? I have been doing quite a lot of live art recently and you always get you fair share of entertainment, from chasing people who have stolen your cans, to drunk folk trying to “help” you on your wall but in general people are just amazed at the process and you find people sitting and watching you for hours. You’ve done a coupla other live installations – tell us about those. It started when Nathan contacted me about doing a live art show for the Feiyue shoe range event , it was really cool and interesting to paint during a party as you get to meet such a lot of people as it seems to break a social boundary and acts as a good ice breaker for people to come up and ask you questions. So there was a really good response to that which lead us to do a live art show at the architecture department at the university recently and then the Something Good Wall! So who is Joff? I am Joff Is street art your main focus? Or do you paint in the traditional sense of the word as well….as in with paints and brushed on canvas? Street art is fairly new to me, I have been illustrating and painting for a long time now but always had an attraction to get involved in the street scene as I grew up in the skating / surfing /music scene. The last few weeks the street art scene as really burst open for me and am booked up for quite awhile now so it seems to be my main focus for the next bit of my life. What are your favourite places to paint? Anywhere in PE that your spray can is just itching for? Hmmm , this could get me into trouble, haha. No. normally when I paint traditional painting style I have a little room at an abandoned house where it’s quiet and I can just do my thing. For the street art I'm currently in talks with a couple of projects that will be popping up around the city soon! Do you come from a trained art background, as in graphic design or something like that? No, I'm self-taught . I studied animation and visual effects but that was more focused on the technical side of things and not too much on the creative process. I am still learning everyday and not owning a tv in my house helps me to keep busy with my art. Your style is really unique. Is it something that’s taken a while to develop – and where have you drawn your influences from? My style developed when I started drawing with the old traditional bottle of ink and a nib on the end of a piece of wood. The images would come out slightly messy and raw which I loved. It also taught me a style where you have to be confident in you drawing and strokes as I work directly in ink and any mistakes can be very tricky to fix. I guess that aspect has helped me a lot when it comes to confident lines when spray painting. My influences or inspiration comes largely from music, my painting can be very emotionally driven and music is such a powerful tool when it comes to expressing that that I find it inspires me and when listening to music and it puts images in my head for ideas to paint. Do you paint solo mostly, or with a crew? I do paint solo mostly but recently I have been collaborating with some great artists and can see myself working with them a lot in the future. Artists tend to be multi-faceted – do you also dabble in music a bit? Yes, I feel extremely lucky to be able to play with the amazing mind and rapper Jean Du Toit and Megan Du Toit who hands down has the best voice to come out of a face! We play in a band called The Cottonfields, and play foot stomping Bluegrass Rap n roll. Any other cool pieces you have planned for the near future? I can't go into too much detail at the moment but there is a good few pieces coming PE’s way soon! Where can guys see more of your work or contact you? https://www.facebook.com/joffsart http://joffs-art.tumblr.com/ www.joffsart.com To this....
Dog's are known as man's best friend. And 2 local surfers are lucky enough to have them as dedicated surf buddies too. If you've surfed Millers at all both Shabu and Shaggy will be familiar sights to you. Shaggy, the cocker spaniel, comes to the beach most days with dad Ken - the resident paddle-skier at Millers. He tends to be a dog on a mission, so Ken has to plonk his special Shaggy Stick in the ground near the pipe, and loop his leash over it to make sure he doesn't head off to Pipe to pick up chicks. Shaggy then chills in the sun with his water bowl and bottle. Ou's used to get really confused to find Shaggy just sitting there attached to his stick - and would be looking up and down the beach wondering who'd left him there - so Ken realised it was best to leave a message on his stick. "Hi, I'm Shaggy, I'm happy to sit here while Kenny is stuffing around in the sea. "Trying" to surf or dive. There is more water in a bottle in my bag if my bowl is empty" Shabu is another Millers Local. He comes with dad Mark Gerharty, the classic old school longboarder. Shabu, a massive ridgeback, is a pretty scary looking beast when he first gallops up to you. Ou's walkinBut thankfully he is a super mellow surf dawg. He just waits patiently in the shallows until Mark catches a wave, then sprints down the reef after him! Mark always straightens out and comes in after each wave, and Shabu gleefully joins him in knee deep water for a bit of a head rub and pat. Stoked out mutt.
Hot off the press - CYOH surfboards coming soon to a surf spot near you! Check out what Jakes has to say about the upcoming release of CYOH Surfboards....l It was a weekend filled with good times, great waves & as always Cyoh lifestyle living. We decided to take the opportunity to do a little test run down the coast with our new Cyoh Surfboards to get some footage for the Cyoh Surfboard website....and footage we did get. We arrived in Seals to a decent sized swell, light winds & a pushing tide, unfortunately strong winds were also forecasted for the day, so we knew we had to move fast. We geared up, waxed up & hit the surf with our affiliated camera wiz behind the lens, Grant Beck. Our first session was blessed with a dead low tide throwing some draining makeable barrels, strong winds, rain & clouds, but this didn’t stop us from throwing ourselves & our new Cyoh Surfboards to the limits. Many barrels were had & shots were captured. After a trip to VIKINGS for some pies & coffee, we were all fueled up & ready to go for round two. By this time the wind had really started blowing, but this didn’t stop us & our new Cyoh Surfboards from finding the pit & steering us through to the other side. Full footage to be released soon. Much like all CYOH inspired ideas, Cyoh Surboards is no different. Gone are the days of ordering boards from shapers out of different provinces who don’t even know your face or surfing ability. Why order a “custom” made surfboard that you don’t even have any input or design with the shaper in the shaping bay? Local is now very lekker, thanks to Cyoh Surfboards, Dennis Ellis & the help of newly purchased robot. No need to try hassle your way to the front of the queue with shapers that don’t have time for you. Now you can take in any surfboard you own to be replicated & saved to your very own personal file to be reproduced exactly the same when ever you heart desires. Faster shaping also means less waiting. GSM giant brands, Dakine, Palmers & Kinetic Racing Fins have also come on board to help create this online 1 STOP BOARD SHOP to life which will be materializing very soon. New board? Need a grip? Need a leash? Need fins? Need wax? … it’s all available & ready to add to your shopping cart of any Cyoh Surfboard order. The time for change is now & the choice is really simple.
Support localism trying to make a change for you & the better of our home. PE power, it’s our turn to make a stand & grow our home the CYOH way. Cyoh Surfboards will be officially launching at the end of the month, but can currently be purchased at Dennis Ellis. Stay tuned for all the event information for the launch / party which will be happening soon. For any further enquiries, please feel free to contact us on the following particulars CELL : 082 4949 793 EMAIL : cyohsurf@yahoo.com Craig Anderson is certainly the man of the moment. Nailing himself FOUR covers so far this year already. Insane surfer, great style, kiff ou. And he's one of us. Grew up surfing Bluewater Bay with the boys, before bailing to Aus at 16. Kiff to see a local light up the world stage! Local is lekker. Specially on the cover of Surfer!
I could swim underneath the wave and not shoot it, or take it on the head and try to get a shot. I swam as fast as I could and barely got up under the lip. I was in the barrel looking up a Craig, shot the sequence, and then tried to get deep enough underwater that his fins would miss me. Most of the time in waves like that, guys are riding thrusters, so you only have to get about three inches under the surface. But Craig was riding a single fin with a 7- or 8-inch fin, which ended up nailing my camera port underwater. Luckily, he still made the wave, but I was too far inside and ended up getting sucked over the falls. I came up and my port was scratched, and I saw cracks in it, so I had to get back to the boat to make sure it didn’t start leaking. That ended the session pretty quick. Those housings are pretty heavy duty. I’m surprised that didn’t stop him dead. Yeah, they’re pretty bulky, but I’m guessing that he had enough momentum that his fin just pushed the housing underwater. I was pretty worried in the moment because he was filming for his movie and that was the only wave like that, so I was hoping that I didn’t knock him off and waste the wave. When Craig got back out, he was really apologetic, saying, “I’m so sorry, that’s never happened before! I’ll pay for the port!” And I was freaking out too like, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mess you up on the wave!” But he ended up making the wave, getting the clip for his movie, and getting the cover of the magazine, so it all worked out in the end [laughs]. So you said you got tossed by that wave. When you’re shooting from the water at waves like Teahupoo, how often do you find yourself in that situation? I don’t think I could give you an exact ratio, but it definitely happens. It’s something that you train for, and try to avoid, but in the end you just have to accept the fact that it’s inevitable when you are swimming at waves like that. When it happens, you just hope for the best, and try to keep yourself from hitting your head on the reef. The scariest part is when you get held down for a long time, because when you are surfing you can usually tell which direction the surface is because your board and your leash are pulling you that way. Without that, it’s easy to lose your sense of direction in the turbulence and not even know which way to swim. Getting this shot, I ended up in one of those situations where you pop out the back and then you get sucked over the falls. But there weren’t any waves behind it, so it wasn’t too bad. Did you know when you first saw the shot that it was something special? It’s tough to tell exactly what you have when you are just looking at it on a camera screen. You could open that image in Photoshop and realize that the photo is soft or that there was a drop of water on the port, or any number of different elements that you can’t really see on the camera in the moment. I was trying not to get too excited about the shot, because you never really know until you can look at the high-resolution version on a computer. But it definitely looked like it had the potential to be something special. Four covers for Ando in 2013 so far - and we only halfway through the year!Local goofy ripper Faye Zoetmulder was part of the winning South African team that claimed gold at the recent World Games in Panama. Caught up with Faye to find out a bit more about her trip, and the comp. "The overall World Games trip was an absolute pleasure to be a part of. Obviously it is a major privilege to represent your country but sometimes there can be challenges too. This trip went smoothly though, we had prime accommodation that gave us 3 home cooked meals a day. We were eating like the royal family, one day for example we had pancakes, fruit and french toast for breakfast, tacos for lunch and fresh sashimi, seared and cooked tuna for dinner. The team we went over with got on like a house on fire, everybody became tight and by the end of the trip we had personal jokes and our own sort of vocab that no one else would understand. We arrived 5 days before the event started, thank goodness. 50 hours straight travel isn't the easiest. Anyway, we got lucky as it was no smaller than 4 foot every single day. Other than hustling 20 South Americans until we wanted to kill them, and the extreme heat, we were super grateful of our time we spent in the water before the event. Being there early also gave us time to enjoy Panama and get to know the Panama way of life. We visited a local school and spent the day helping kids with their recycling project. I think that was a huge positive to our overall trip, we connected with the kids and it left all of his in a very joyful state of mind. On contest day 2 the waves had dropped to about 1 foot. It wasn't surfable on the low so we had ample time to relax and sleep in every morning of the event. That was good for us, it kept us pretty level headed. I really do mean it when I say extreme heat! A few of us got knocked into the Repo rounds but from day 2 onwards we were the only team with all surfers still in the contest and that lasted till the 2nd last day. I think we had the winning formula in every aspect. When Shaun was the only man standing on the final day we all stuck together and gave him all the gees and support he needed! The second the hooter sounded to end Shauns final felt like the best day ever. The team was flying high on good spirits. Then came the prize giving. We sang our National Anthem proudly as Shaun stood on the first place podium. When it came down to team positions, we knew we were in the top 3. Just before announcing 2nd place, we casually started walking to the stage and congratulated the Aussies on their defeat against us. It was all a laugh and Australia believed they had won too. Funny story, myself and Shaun were right at the stage when the side official whispered to Shaun that its not his turn yet. He looked at me and said "WTF we won, we won gold". A second later they announced "In 2nd place, Australia". Now that, right there, that was the best day in my surfing career, the best day in my life. Team South Africa jumped up and down, hugged each other and just laughed. Im pretty sure Etienne shed a tear or two. We couldn't believe it. Going on stage and receiving our medals, the trophies and blaring our national anthem can't even be described. Feeling on top of the world, it felt better than that! We can't thank our support group back home enough, messages constantly streaming through got us by every day. Our sponsor RVCA for our team kit and believing in us, Surfing South Africa, Robin. Everyone. We went out their and did it for South African surfing and for each other.
By far, the best trip hands down! |
AuthorMillerslocal Archives
July 2021
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