If anyone knows where Winter is hiding please go give it a big kick up the butt! The small run of swell has persisted for nearly a month now. Even the JBay ou's are complaining. Least they now have an idea of what it feel like to live in PE. 

Nonetheless, still something here and there to get wet in, but no decent groundswells have turned the corner at Cape Recife for a while. Keep the faith - something has to pitch up eventually! It always does.

Some really decent surf just down the road though. Bombs and barrels on offer at PA for the Quik comp. Beyrick de Vries won the Open, with Adin Masencamp (u20) and Sebastian Williams (u16) the other division winners. Best placing by an NMBS surfer was JBay's Joshe Faulkner with a 3rd in the u16's.

From big bombs to big rigs. After spending some time in Coega getting fixed, this huge floating platform starting to make it's way west to Namibia, then Angola. Moving at 6 knots, it's gonna take a while. Think the Bell Bouy woulda had some size envy issues as it went by!?

The swells might be in hiding, but the sharks ain't. Another incident, this time in the California. Luckily the surfer was uninjured. Experts reckon it was just a juvenile shark having a looky-see as to what this surfboard thing was all about.

Some serious spring cleaning underway at the Boardroom. Full revamp of the shop is on the cards, and some exciting new additions - watch this space!

Some of the biggest waves on offer this weekend was the prop wash from the chopper doing NSRI exercises. Ok, not quite, there were a few slightly bigger lumps than that. The resident pod of dolphins cruised right around the boat - just to suss out what was happening in their back yard. 

Always have to smile when see the guys doing the drills, cos invariably they're done on a day when it's sheet glass conditions - no wind, no swell. Not too sure how many rescues happen when it's like that?

Sometimes life does imitate art, as the saying goes. Last year photoshopped a few nice looking waves onto the eastern breakwall of the Coega harbour for April Fool's day. Even caught Twiggy out - he was amped to come surf it. Turns out it does get some surf, as I suspected, but needs a really big swell and just the right conditions.

Marlo Torr snapped a pic of it doing it's thing recently. No chance of it getting crowded any time soon. Or ever. The locals are big, grey and have lots more teeth than you do. And there are loads of them. Bird Island is just a stone's throw from the harbour, and the finned friends use the Coega beaches as their chill-out zones after grabbing a seal snack at the islands.

Has front deck grip made a comeback? Must have if Jordy's latest stick is anything to go by? Front grip fell off the map after Fletcher in the 80's. But as with all things fashion, what goes around comes around. Mostly in 20 year cycles, so this took a bit longer. 

Noah Deane has been rocking a frontie for the past year, so maybe it's catching on....

Looking ahead to this week and a few short period lumps and bumps should at least get us wet. Still no serious SW groundswells showing on the charts yet. Wondering if it's El Nino doing us in?

Lekker win by the Nelson Mandela Bay Surfriders (NMBS) - otherwise known as EP - at the Vic Bay Quad. Third win in a row for our team, and the first under the NBMS banner. Not always the easiest surf conditions but PE ou's used to surfing sketchy stuff!

Not exactly a week for the memory banks as far as surf goes. Bit of a non-event winter so far. Had the odd good swell, but they've been few and far between. Wind patterns been odd as well, with loads of east. Maybe El Nino effecting us all the way from the Pacific?

Remember that lekker pic from Deon Lategan last week - had him print it on a big canvas as a birthday present for a mate from Indo who came over to surf Supers for his 40th. Didn't get it backed cos be a bit of a hack to fit that in your luggage, so he'll have to get it done the other side! If you looking for presents for surfing mates, husbands, partners, you can't go too far wrong with one of Deon's awesome line-up shots. Beats a pair of socks or a hankie any day.

Big news this week was the announcement of the Appeals Decision on whether the green light given to the fish farm off Pollock would be revoked. Turns out that the DEA has told DAFF to go back to the drawing board and consider Algoa 1 (Coega area) as a preferred location instead. It doesn't mean the Pollock site is off the cards completely, but it certainly looks like it's no longer top of the pile.

You can read a synopsis of the Appeals decision here
http://www.millerslocal.co.za/millerslocals-blog/fish-farm-location-being-re-considered

Annoying that no matter how hard you look out the window hoping to see waves it can stay stubbornly flat and/or onshore. At least the front yard got a trim, complete the typical Saffa approach to Health & Safety regs. Dude cruises up the ladder with his chainsaw. Could drop it, or the palm fronds his cutting off on ou's walking past on the boardwalk, but hey, no probs! Be so boring living in a place like the UK or Aus where everything is so over-regulated. Much rather have random dudes wielding chainsaws as part of everyday life! 

For every ying there's a yang. Nothing like the WQS grind to give you the best combo of heaven and hell. Get to surf lekker waves in amazing locations, but to do so you gotto grovel a bit in terms of accommodation thanks to our dismal Rand. Dale Staples gets barreled off his pip - but then has to go back to the digs and doss in his boardbag!

Quite a few of the local guys over in France at the moment doing the comp season there. Matt McGillivray, Dylan Lightfoot, Remi Peterson and Dale Staples all doing their best to rack up some points.

Summer type weather conditions don;t do much for surf quality, but they do let the guys get out on their gliders. Friday morning saw Doug head up in his glider, and took this snap of a local cruising the line-up at Robberg. Gotto be tough being a Plett local and always having to share your waves with these boys!

Surfing at the end of the road no longer means you have to panic if you forgot your wax or snapped your leash or need some sunscreen. Seals local Cody Futeran who runs Surf Camp South Africa will be opening a lil surfshop next to the cafe soon. Keep ya posted when it opens up, should be in the next coupla weeks.

Some new wax on the market. Made by Gary Cooper, long-time PE local. Got myself a bar and will try it out as soon as we get some darn waves. You can grab it at Surf Centre, where R30 buys you 60g of lekker sticky local goodness. 

Plenty of talented peeps in the PE surf community. Andre Clarke just designed this lekker ad for Gearbox fin systems, and it ran in one of the Aussie surf mags recently. Andre's also the guy behind the rad lil comic strip the Grom Reaper in the Boardtalk surf mag. Speaking of which - the latest issue is out now so go grab yours from local surf stores or Warwick at Coffee's Up.

Ou's been klapping the skatepark lately for their fill of glide, given the absense of waves in the most part. Here's R-evolve's Wayne Barnes getting some air. Respect to skaters, cos blowing a bowl hurts a helluva lot more than blowing a wave!

Seals local & NMMU Archi student Scott Lenton will be studying in Barcelona this semester, and being the dedicated surfer he is of course his sticks made the trip over to Spain with him, although gonna have to say his "boardbag" leaves a lot to be desired. Massive amount of faith in the baggage handler critters just to give it a meagre covering of bubblewrap! Nothing like a bit of sleeping rough at the airports to get you amped to finally make it to your destination.

The Joburg Boardriders initiative is gaining momentum, with the crew having their first get-together planned for next weekend. So if you know any landlocked surf rats give them a heads up to join in. Ou's have got a kiff bunch of amazing prizes to win and some awesome raffles and spot giveaways, thanks to Spider Surfboards, Nixon watches and Ripcurl.

Always stoked to find a photag who takes awesome shots of our lil town. Came across Dean Cothill's work, and he sure does know how to snap a shutter button. If you love good shots of the bay and it's surrounds, then check Dean out on https://instagram.com/deancothill/

Looks like good news regarding the proposed fish farm for just off Pollock Beach. Just seen the Appeal Decision from the Minister of Environmental Affairs, and she has decided to revert the matter to the DDG:LACE of the Department for reconsideration. So although not a let-off, it is at least a reprieve for the time being. 

In the fight against having a fish farm located right in front of our main tourist beaches (Algoa 1), I'd say common sense has won Round One. The powers that be are at least not going to just barrel forward with their original decision - which was the granting of the approval to go ahead with it, and are now going to do a bit more research. That includes putting Algoa 5 (the site near Coega Harbour) back on the table as a potential location.

In a nutshell, the Appeal was lodged against the environmental authorisation issued to DAFF for the development of the Algoa Fish Farm. The Deputy Director General(LACE) of the DEA authorised DAFF on 9 July 2014 to proceed with the development of the Algoa Fish Farm.

But then all hell broke loose. Cos it is a most spectacularly doff spot to think about putting a fish farm. The 17 000 people who signed the online petition agreed with that. 

The reconsideration process entails DAFF (the guys who applied for the zoning) having to undertake the following:

• A detailed assessment of the feasibility of Algoa 5 as a preferred alternative (Algoa 5 is near Coega harbour)
• A detailed analysis of the projected revenue & employment opportunities likely to be created by the project, measured against the perceived loss in revenue & employment opportunities as a result of the project at Algoa 1; and
• A detailed comprehensive assessment of the feasibility of Algoa 1 and Algoa 5

All credit to the Appeals board, who took into consideration the grounds for appeal from all the appellants, the outcome of public meetings, and met with aquaculture specialists, ACSA, Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism & Business Chambers, and the Municipality (NMBM) in it's bit to better understand everyone's concerns.

Although the NMBM were pretty late to join the party, they thankfully requested that an alternative site be considered for the project. They affirmed their support of marine aquaculture in the province, but just not at it’s current proposed location. Clap on the back and a beer from us for that one ou's.

DAFF has requested that it be afforded an opportunity to further explore Algoa 5 as a preferred location and do a comparison study between Algoa 1 and Algoa 5, and following this will resubmit an application for an Environmental Authorisation to the Dept of Environmental Affairs.

In summary, the fish farm off Pollock (Algoa 1) isn't off the table yet, but at least the calls been made to have a better look at alternatives. Let's hold thumbs that the outcome will be in favour of siting it elsewhere in the bay.

If you want to read the whole Appeal Decision - you can download it here

Abbreviations
DDG:LACE is the Deputy Director General: Legal, Authorisations, Compliance and Enforcement 
DAFF is the Dept of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (the applicant)
DEA is the Dept of Environmental Affairs 


*The above is my interpretation of the Appeals Decision document. Pretty sure my understanding of it is correct, so hopefully no curve balls I've missed.

Some dodgy dudes operating in the car parks again, so watch out for your cabbies. Millers local paddleskier Kenny Batemann had a good surf go bad on Friday, when he came back to his car to discover it'd been broken in to.

Ken was using a surf lock, and found it bent and buckled. The ou's had got his keys outta it, unlocked his door and ransacked his car. Pretty darn lucky they didn't steal his car, seeing as they had the keys, and at least chucked the keys under the car so he didn't have to schlep with changing locks etc.

Besides the hassle factor of having to replace the stolen stuff, Ken thought he was cool. Until he called his insurance company. Then things got complicated. it turns out they ain't so keen to pay up cos there was no forced entry into the vehicle, as the vehicles own keys were used to gain access. Despite these being locked away securely (OK, so it turns out not so securely!) in a surf lock.

Ken's now trying to convince them to cough up, and is still waiting to hear if they will.

So the moral of the story is don't think surf locks are unbreakable (apparently all it takes is 2 screwdrivers and 30 seconds), and if you use them, it might be worth getting hold of your insurance company to find out if they'll cover you if your keys get taken out of it and used to gain entry to your car to nick stuff (or worse, your car!)

Might be a better option to pop over to Houdini and get yourself one of those plastic keys made (approx R250), and just put it on a string round your neck or in your wettie key pocket. Just be sensible about where you stash your actual car keys when you're using one of the plastic keys for locking up. Cos you don't want a thief just to have instant access to your car keys if he smashes a window and looks in your glove compartment or under your seat, so be a lil inventive as to where you hide them in the car.

If you're keen to still use your surf lock rather, try put it somewhere pretty inaccessible on your cabbie. On the spring inside the front wheel arch is a good option.

Keep those eye's peeled cos the dodgies are operating in the car parks again. They'd probably benefit from a short lesson in manners should you catch one.

 

Just another mid-winter's week in the Eastern Cape. Some flat days, some fun days, and some very fun days. 'Specially if you drove west. Hopefully everyone banked some good one's, cos we could be headed into a serious flat spell - cos CarPark John got his new stick. 

Nothing beats a fresh sled, but as we all know it often seems to coincide with the onset of a flat spell. Kinda like getting this kiff new battery operated toy at Christmas - and no batteries. Anyhow -so far so good. John is frothing on his new Boardroom board, and tested it out in JBay on Friday and says it goes like a boeing.

From new boards to new artwork. Uber-talented local artist Joff (aka Steven Carter) can weild a spray can with the best of them. He's just upgraded a boring wall in Upper Valley Road from eye-sore to eye-candy. Nice one!

Lots of wildlife around at the moment. The whales have made their way back into the bays, with quite a few spotted off the PE beachfront as well as out at St Francis. Paddlers Richard Arderne and Steve Palmer had an up close and personal kinda encounter out there. Awesome creatures, although somewhat daunting to view close-up.

There have been instances when they've swam under surfers and then surfaced right up under them. That'll get ya blood pumping!

Not only sealife here in abundance, but over in Florida an ou landed the fish of a lifetime - on his SUP. Fought it for a coupla hours, got tumbled off his SUP once or twice, but finally managed to land this massive 7ft Goliath Grouper, weighing in at 190kg's.

Dodgy dudes active in the Millers carpark again. One of the local paddleskiers had his surflock jimmied whilst he was out surfing. Opened his car door, grabbed some stuff, and then bailed....with his key. Expensive exercise to change locks on your cabbie. Eish. Need to clone the Pipe carguard so can get some decent protection at Millers. No-one messes with Chris the Pirate too often!

Expect sales of Firewire Vanguards to spike after shots of Kelly ripping his to pieces recently. Can put him on a barn door, literally, and he'll still surf it better than 90% of ou's on normal boards. At least if he sparks a fad of the oddly shaped boards it'll be more functional than the fad he started back in the day - with super thin hyper rockered boards that the average Joe found a nightmare to try ride.

In terms of weird board dings, this one has to take the cake. Regular Zag columnist and general funny-man, Ben Trovato is jolling in Bali at the moment. Managed to do this spectacular bit of board damage to his stick. Getting a leash pull into your deck is pretty hard to do, but to get it to pull right through the nose, well now that takes talent!

Often feature Deon's pic's (his is the first one of this blog post), but here's evidence of him appearing on the other side of the lens, thanks to Robbie Irlam. If you like your daily dose of lekker images, then go give both of them a Like.
https://www.facebook.com/DeonLateganPhotographics
https://www.facebook.com/supertubessurfphotography

PE isn't exactly famous for it's surf, but it could soon be hitting the world headlines if Josh Enslin has anything to do with it. Josh is going to be having a go at breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest surf session. He'll have to log over 29hrs and 27min. You can check out all the deets here.

Slackers..... go fetch your boards at The Boardroom!!!

REPAIRS THAT HAVE BEEN STORED FOR OVER A YEAR:

All boards, as follows, need to be collected and paid for from the Boardroom by Wednesday 19 August, otherwise they'll be sold to cover materials and labour. If boards are not collected and repairs paid for, we will be selling these boards for between R250 and R450.

Thankfully a few fun days again this week, was worried that winter might go back into hibernation after the week before's cooking surf. Really good lil peelers on Wednesday arvo after the wind has finished blowing it's mielie off. Some guys had bailed to Jbay earlier cos it handles the wind so much better. Chris got lucky and ended up sitting out at perfect Point in Jbay all by himself - but then started to hear the Jaws theme music playing in his head and suddenly was hoping an insta-crowd might arrive!

Coupla waves out west to round off the weekend. Bit breezy and a bit chilly, but you could certainly get wet if you wanted too.

PA grom Kye McGregor had a birthday to remember. Chilling in the carpark chowing his birthday cake and who rocks up - no other than the King himself. Chatted and chowed some cake with the locals, then gave his lekker jacket to the carguard, just because. Legend.

Weirdest thing of the week has to be the ou who rode his motoX bike in at Chopes. It's been home to many oddball stunts over the years (including Bruce Irons surfing it blindfolded) but this one takes the cake. It begs the question: but why!? 'Spose if the ou's are gonna windsurf and SUP out there you may as well bike it right!

If you've visited SAMREC to check out the penguins you mighta noticed the tips of the palisade fence are dotted with remnants of old wetties and gloves. They're not there to make it easier for the tuxedo'd critters to escape to freedom over the fence without poking themselves, but are used by the volunteers who feed 'em to protect their hands and arms from getting nipped. Apparently some of the lil ou's complain about the food!

Coupla whirly birds made their way slowly along the beachfront on Tuesday evening. Perfect weather for a fly by -not sure what they were up to though as they cruised very slowly past at about 50m up all along the beach.

The Citroen SA Surfing Champs went down at Richards Bay during the week, and seemed to be doing their best to resemble PE - small and windy! Thankfully conditions improved later in the week with some nice waves coming through.

Unfortunately the final weekend was a bit on the small side again, with competitors having to make the most of what came through. Massive props to JBays Joshe Faulkner who won the u20 SA title. The NMB girls also did well, with Faye and Emma 2nd & 3rd in the Open women's and Gina 2nd in the u20's.

We love our boards whilst we've on 'em, but they have a nasty habit of developing carnivorous tendencies the minute we're parted from them. R-evolve's Wayne Barnes had a bit of an argument with his fin after a shorepound rinse and spin cycle, and came up with a lekker gash across his achilles tendon. Mervyn did a good job as emergency co-ordinator, and got hold of surf-mom Annie van Der Merwe to come stitch it back together. Nice job all round guys.

Had a blue moon last week. Although it looked pretty yellow to be honest! A blue moon is so named not cos of it's colour, but refer to an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year: either the third of four full moons in a season, or a second full moon in a month of the common calendar. Ours was the second full moon in a month.

After being a spectacularly dismal month for surf in the bay, July redeemed itself at the last minute. Friday 31st saw some smokers filling in round Cape Recife and lighting up Rincon through to Millers. Late morning through to just after lunch saw the best combo of size and tide, despite the wind making things tricky. As the arvo rolled on and the tide filled in things quietened down appreciably, although still plenty of fun rides to be had.

Bit of a taster of what was to come late Thursday afternoon, but you had to be fairly unfussy about the effort/reward ratio of your surf, cos although there were some big 'un's coming through, you had to negotiate insane cross chop and needed quads like Bruce Campbell just to maintain. When even the "paddle-like-Duracell-bunny" groms can't get onto sets cos of the chop then you know things are a mission.

Pretty obvious if PE's firing them Jbay's off the Richter. And it was. Varying between 8 - 12ft all day the locals reckon it was one of the best days all year. There were already 40 ou's in the water at first light. 

The big surf handed out it's fair share of beatings, and took it's toll on boards as well. With finless aficionado Derek Hynd looking philosophical about turning his 8ft'r into two 4 ft'r's. Sometimes "two for the price of one" isn't a good thing.

It wasn't only boards getting busted, there were some finger casualties as well. Emma Smith had an altercation with some razor sharp mussels whilst she paddled in at the gully, and came off second best - and 4 stitches down. 

Certainly no doubting that winter's well and truly here after some icy says and equally icy water. Quite a few days last week saw the mercury hovering at around 14C - John was out testing the temp's at Denvils on a regular basis with his trusty pool thermometer.

Frozen feet resulted in finally succumbing to getting a pair of the famous Jbay-made Instep suede sheepskin lined boots. No idea why I never bought some years ago, flipping amazing things that keep your feet warm as toast. Hot buttered toast. Big Dave reckons his wife has had hers for 15 years, so they're definitely an investment! Grab em at a surf shop near you.

Right place right time saw Antionette Morkel snap these kiff shots of the Rincon rocket powered shark last Sunday. She'd been standing on the rocks at Blackbottoms shooting the surfers, when she saw something jumping out at the backline. Assuming it was a whale she aimed her camera out there and got some shots of what turned out to be a Thresher shark. Apparently they're harmless, and really shy. But would still give you a lekker skrik if they happened to take to the air nearby!

Some lekker new benches up at Seals thanks to Seal Point Boardriders and Billabong. Look like the perfect design to cope with the spring tide big swell surges! Hopefully they stay put on land though and don't end up floating in the line-up. Another new addition is the Surf Rules board. Read it. Apply it. All it takes is one muppet to ruin a session for everyone else. Don't be that muppet.

Good luck to all our NMBS team riders who'll be making the trek northwards to Richard's Bay for the Citroen SA Surfing Champs that kick off on Monday 3rd August. Both the Open and the Masters will be surfing there, so expect some old school meets new school to go down.

Next years SA Champs will see the inclusion of a team from Gauteng. Say howzit to Joburg Boardriders, the brainchild of Nathan Gernetsky. The ou's are keen to have some get-togethers in the Big Smoke, to keep the stoke alive, as well as organise some surf/skate missions and watch some surf flicks. So if you're a surfer stuck in Joey's then get in touch with a crew of like-minded individuals and stop yourself going nuts up there.
https://www.facebook.com/joburgboardriders

Whilst we've been dodging polar bears, Grant Beck did a sneaky lil mission up to Sri Lanka to judge at the Red Bull #RideMyWave surf champs held at Arugam Bay. Not having had enough of warm water and sunny skies, he took the hour long flight over to Maldives to say howzit to his bro Brad, who's surf guiding over there. Wish he coulda brought some sunshine & warm water home in his boardbag.....

JBay local Dylan Lightfoot was on an absolute tear at the Van's US Open Pro Junior event at Huntington last week - he blitzed through to the semi's, where he unfortunately didn't make it through. But lotsa valuable ranking points added to the tally. Next stop, France. 

Get your froth on for the upcoming Cobble's Classic. If you've got a traditional single fin log, and love to nose ride and do all things old school then this is for you. It goes down at Cobbles, Cape Recife, from 24-27 Sept. Get those entries in! Kiff prizes, kiff vibe, kiff people...make a plan to pull in. (Entry forms here)

There's some peeps (like me) who are anal about packing boards when travelling. Mine get a custom-made extra-padding-like-the-Michelin Man baggage-handler and bomb-proof boardbag. And then you get ou's like Stan. Seals local and Mentawaii surf guide Stanley Badger takes a minimalist (or fatalistic) approach to flying with boards. Apparently gladwrap has super potent ninja-like thermonucleur protection qualities. Or not. They just wouldn't let him on the plane with the board uncovered so he appeased em by cling wrapping it!

Local surfer Amba Holmes has swapped surfing Pipe for crewing on an 80ft cat in the Med. Not a shabby swap! Specially when you run into some smart lil dingy's like this one. Known as "A", and designed for a Russian billionaire by legendary interior & product designer Phillipe Starck, she was a bargain at $300 mil bucks. Apparently now owned by a supermodel.

The majority of the pro circus left town straight after the end of the JBay event, but some stuck around. Like this familiar figure heading out at Supers during Friday's big swell. Local JBay lens-man Robbie Irlam was stoked to chat to the King whilst he made his way back up the beach after his sesh - and said he was lank impressed with what a lekker guy he was. Kelly is King! Long live the King.

Speaking of legends, on Thursday last week it was a year since local PE legend Vaughan Jones left us. Obviously Mr Jones is keeping a close eye on things from up there, cos he sent through some of the best surf all year to mark his anniversary. Hopefully everyone caught a wave for him. Gone but not forgotten. 

The week ended quietly in the bay, although if you went searching the wild sides of the coastline nearby you were richly rewarded. Like Twig and crew. Rumour has it Kelly was watching from the hill, but didn't get in. Peaks and no walls. Still, a good sized peak nonetheless.