 © Maarten van der Velde Oh yeh - there were waves. Big juicy one's. JBay was off it's pip. PE had some smokers. Be a bit grumbly if you missed out. But not too grumbly, charts still looking OK for a while ahead.  © Maarten van der Velde Maarten decided to take a few on the head so we could enjoy the bird's eye view of some Supertubes tube. Brave to bob about in that and be part of the food chain whilst the mullet are thick. But shew - lekker shots!  Pipe © Ian Thurtell PE hosted the SA Open of Surfing and thankfully Pipe actually had some surfable waves. It of course leveled the playing field nicely for everyone cos it really is a fickle wave - a bank here a hole there - dead flat for 30 minutes etc etc. As is was a WSL QS event there were plenty of foreign surfers taking part. Brisa Hennessy from Hawaii won the ladies and Australia’s Jackson Baker won the men's event.  © SA Surfing  © Heather Nel There were waves all over, which included the end of the road out west if you skipped JBay (which is already starting to get crowded ahead of the comp, and with the influx of the winter surf tourists.)  And also some surf at the end of the road on the wildside.  © Herman Coetzee There was some good surf just to the east of PE thanks to the morning northerlies. But the locals seem a lil tetchy about visitors from town it seems, as a PE surfer had his tyre let down whilst surfing there, as did the car parked next to him.  Some sand seems to be returning to the beaches along the Pipe to Millers stretch, although still a way to go before it gets back to "normal" levels. But the drone shots from the comp at Pipe do show some nice sand boils starting to puff up.  © SA Open The surf was big - and the local wildlife was just as big. How's this up-sized creep crawly that decided it really liked the furry innards of this Rip Curl wettie. Lucky for Flaviana it didn't crawl it's way into the suit itself, as that would make for some interesting contortions on discovering your arm isn't the only occupant of the sleeve as you pull your wettie on....  © Flaviana Kupczyk In between shooting the surf action, Robbie always finds time to keep an eye on what's happening on the beach in between sets. Here's the SuperTubes drive-thru - I mean fly-thru, open for lunch. Mussels on the menu.  © Robbie Irlam Some really cool new board manufacturing technology about these days. Brendan Basset from Natural Fabrication who are making awesome eco-boards. As Dennis Ellis said of his new board hemp glassed board "Smoking new board. Sisal. Eco biodegradable. Edible. Smokable? possibly." Brendans eco board range is all about sustainable cores, with glassing is focused on the use of bio-resins and natural fiber reinforcement. A schweet ride that's also good for the environment.
Birthdays are cool, getting a new surfboard for your birthday is even cooler. Alan, Pipe local and owner of the awesome Muse restaurant, checking out his kiff pressie.  No week is complete without sunrises shots, and with normal early bird snappers Frans and Andrew outta town, it was JBay Etienne who did the morning duties whilst watching the SA Open at Pipe.  © Etienne Venter  © Etienne Venter Looks like the good run of surf may continue, with some more cold fronts on the way. So to end off with a reminder of what last week dished up....  © Robbie Irlam  Jordy © Robbie Irlam The weekend dished up a few waves if you traveled west, or didn't mind the chop in the Bay. Another quiet week before that though. We seem to be in the flat week, weekend waves cycle at the moment, which I guess has those stuck at work/school smiling.  © Vaughan Deacon Photography  © Vaughan Deacon Photography JBay is starting to warm-up for the upcoming WSL comp, and has already had some cooking swells this winter. The scaffolding is starting to go up for the comp and local photag Robbie Irlam will be hoping he can "borrow" the platforms for a few sessions before the comp kicks off.  © Tyrell Johnsson  © Robbie Irlam Speaking of comps - the SA Open kicks off at Pipe on Tuesday - and there may actually even be some waves. Shock, horror! It would confuse everyone senseless should Pipe actually deliver good surf to coincide with a comp! Mobile venue so the guys can pick up sticks and head round the corner if need be.  Our East Cape locals keep up their winning streak - this past weekend saw St Francis's Crystal Hulett and Micheal Hill win the Longboard divisions in the City Surf Series in Durbs.  The pier is probably PE's most iconic landmark, so it's always cool to see an unusual photo of it - how this one from Paul Wright showing some "light painting" . Light painting is basically lighting some steel wool and whipping it about in varying directions whilst photographing with a slow shutter speed to catch all the movement.  © Paul Wright Aloes usually mean waves, but sometimes we get aloes and no waves. Ah well, win some lose some. Plenty of sand at Humewood is seems, so be interesting if we do get a bit of a swell going through there soon.  © Colin Hilder All you ever needed to know about ding repair below:  Some beaut weather this past week - which meant some beaut sunrises. Kudos to the brave peeps who get up early to score these shots, and brave the nippy conditions.  © Frans Gerber  © Frans Gerber And of course if there's a lekker sunrise you can be assured of a lekker sunset. Much easier to photograph - no early mornings required!   © Luc Hosten Anyone over the age of 40 should be familiar with these! It used to be the only way to predict what swell was coming, and you had to buy the newspaper to see 'em! See a centre pressure of 980 and below and you'd know it was coming! As nice as all the fancy internet models are with their reds and purples, it's still lekker to see a whole lined of sabre-toothed monsters heading our way.   © Gideon Brunsdon Another quiet week on the surf-front. Coupla peaks if you went wildside hunting but the Bay didn't have much to offer at all. Even on World Ocean's day on 8 June the sea steadfastly refused to cough up a decent wave. Few lumps 45 minutes drive down the N2 at the end of the week just to keep everyone sane.  © Robbie Irlam  © Mervyn Goddard Despite the lack of swell, we still have a lekker beachfront to enjoy and for that we're thankful. Kiff sandy beaches and clean water, all easily accessible. Not too many cities can claim to be that lucky.  © Herman Coetzee The only hiccup is that it isn't too safe at the moment. Just this past week a coupla skelms robbed someone in Admiralty Drive and made a beeline for the beach in their escape. The community is gatvol of this sorta thing so peeps gave chase, and together with the help of some surfers at Pipe managed to apprehend and detain the suspects.  Skelms are kooks, but it turns out that so is one of the big shots of the World Surf League. Chief Commercial Officer Beth Greves, 4th in command at WSL, was spotted heading down for a "surf" at the recent Kerama's comp with the fins in her board put in backwards. Yip - and these are the people managing our sport. Just saying.... (and to make matters worse she still had the swing tag on the board.)  From kooks to kings. We have some super talented loggers in the Eastern Cape - Crystal Hullet (St Francis) and Steve Sawyer (JBay) took top honours at the Tigers Milk Classic in Cape Town this past weekend. Class act those two.  Stoked with my new Hanalei Fins thanks to Lancelot Pearson, and ex-PE ou now based in Aus. Been riding these fins for over 4 years now and absolutely love them, so was beyond chuffed when Lance sent me some new Q2 flip tips that he hand painted. Can't wait to try em out. Just need waves. These things are like nitrox for surfboards - tune Dust Surf in Cape Town if you wanna get your mitts on some.  Winter is now fully under way, and the glorious glow of the late arvo sunset always makes up for what we don't get in waves. Although sometimes one can be lucky and get a kiff sunset AND waves.  © Heather Nel  © Marcus Ducker How do you know it's winter - besides the obvious temperature change? The aloes are a dead giveaway. Any surfer has a special affinity with aloes cos spotting them along the drive from PE to JBay means you know it's waves season.  Schoenies doing it's JBay impression - just from an aloe perspective! © Luc Hosten So how flat was it in the bay this week? This flat...  © Heather Nel  © Andrew Garai But never let the fact that it's flat stop you from paddling out! A dedicated early morning Pipe crew are often out there no matter what, and truly embody the definition of the word "optimist"!  Cos if you don't go you never know...© Frans Gerber Not too much on the charts for the coming week either until the weekend, and then it looks like the wind might not play ball. Eish, surfing isn't as simple as playing tennis.  © Luc Hosten  © Robbie Irlam A yin and yang week. Bogger all during the week, but the weekend delivered the goods. Two days of decent surf in the bay, and very very decent surf up the road. JBay was cooooking. The bay had to deal with some wind issues, but in between that there were still good waves to be had.  Avalanche © Vaughan Deacon Photography  Millers © Mervyn Goddard Besides being alive with waves, the ocean was alive with sea-life. Red tide made a comeback, with large swathes of brown all over, and then there were what seemed like millions of mullets. Huge schools of them right in among the line up, that all leapt up as you paddled through them. Water didn't smell too lekker either! Seemed like the mullets weren't only swimming in the water but surfing it too. Lotsa frothing surfers in the line-up meant that some ou's forgot their manners.  © Robbie Irlam Mullet-behaviour probably wasn't helped by the looong lulls between set's. Timed a 40 min break in the action whilst out at Millers. The wait was worth it though, as the really good sets took you down way past 2nd avenue. Which promptly solved the "last wave in" conundrum.  Not only mullets, but plenty of dolphins about - and even a seal hopped about the line-up for a while on Sunday arvo. Nothing quite like have a black thing leap out the water right next to you to get the heart rate going.  The best surfers out there © Heather Nel Wind was a factor for the weekends surf. Although I think dealing with wind on sand-dunes is probably worse than dealing with wind in the line-up. Dirk Erasmus decided to lose a few layers of skin and ventured into the Sundays River dunes during the gale.  © Dirk Erasmus The aborted Margaret River pro got finished off at Kerama's in Indo last week. Jordy managed a 3rd spot, whilst Italo Ferreria won. Jordy did win the paddle battle with Medina - who also tried to grab his leash a coupla times whilst racing back out to the priority buoy. Jordy was thinking about giving him a snotklap!  Not the worst wave to have a comp on. Kerama's. © WSL Kelly decided not to surf Kerama's cos his foot was still injured - however he did manage to surf 10-12ft Cloudbreak without any problems - go figure!  © Joli  © Joli So now that winter has started you probably need to get that gun ready - tune Dennis at the Boardroom for your sharp shooter needs.  Surf Scene's lease at the Summerstrand Village shopping centre is expiring so they're looking to sell off their remaining stock - so head over and grab yourself a bargain.  The new apartment block that's going up over the road from Millers that's had nothing happening for the past few months after the original contractors went bang now has new peeps onsite - and for a minute I thought surf brand RVCA had gotten into construction! Logo's looks pretty darn similar!
Yip, those kiff sunrises still keep coming. This week was no different.  JBay © Robbie Irlam  Pipe © Frans Gerber Hopefully everyone got wet this weekend. If you didn't take one final look at what you missed and then remember to consult your diary (aka the wave forecast) before committing to weekend engagements in future.  © Robbie Irlam  © Marteen van der Velde  © Marteen van der Velde |
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December 2019
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