 © Alan Buchanan From feast to famine in the space of a week. After 2 cranking surf weeks summer returned with a bang this week. Lekker sunny weather, crystal blue water....and bogger-all waves. Other than a sneaky Tuesday early morning sesh in 16 sec ground swell before the east came up.  © Dirk Erasmus The kiff summer weather meant perfect conditions for the ou's in the Ocean Swim series. Nice to see the beachfront getting used for all sorts of activities.  © Johan Fourie Summer and the east's also mean these lil critters are about in droves. Pretty to look at, not so pretty when they sting the shite outta you. Best treatment of the stinging result of a close encounter with Mr Bottle is to try pour hot water over the sting - as hot as you can bear without burning yourself (cos sting plus burn would be doff). The hot water denatures the protein within the sting - as in breaks it down, so it don;t sting no more.  © Chris Scott Summer-time is perfect for small clean beautifully shaped beachies. Like this one caught by Chris Scott down the road. No takers other than the photag!  © Nevil Hullet Coupla windless days during the week - great opportunity to get up high and look down on the world. Nevil Hullet snapped a few kiff shots of his hood, St Francis Bay, during the week.  © Sean Coppin  The latest edition of the Boardtalk has hit the shelves - grab it at Surf Centre Humewood or the SStrand Spar. Plenty of local surf action and stories. Shot to Sean Coppin for getting the mag out regularly.  If you find yourself heading east and ending up in Port Alfred, then give Cuan McGregor and the Shaka Surf School a holler. These ou's will get you up and riding in no time, and you'll have a blast doing it.  © Thelma Nel That time of year again when the Fence locals have to start sharing their hood with Playland. Grab a quick rollercoaster ride en route to the beach! The Playland peeps have arrived and will start setting up this week. Candyfloss and bumper cars happening soon.  Schoenies skyline © Luc Hosten  © Luc Hosten  Arg - forgot to note who took the shot. Facebook. View of fire from Sards Eish - big fire along Marine Drive over the weekend. No-one's certain what started it, but props to the firefighters for doing a great job of keeping Schoenies safe.  @life_of_isle Another summers week ahead - so plan to do some driving if you're keen to get wet.
 Yeeeuw, what a week! Waves for days. Flipping good waves. If you didn't get wet, feel sad. Very sad. Cos you missed it. And that sucks!!  Remi Peterson © Robbie Irlam  Donovan Zoetmulder © Storm Seaman You were spoilt for choice. PE was firing. So was JBay. And so was further west. In an hour n a half's car trip you'd be able to hook countless clean green walls.  Further west © Cody Futeran  The famous rock jump © Chris Scott  End of the road © Stan Badger Loads of options to choose from in the bay, with pretty much every spot from north to south in the bay going off. There were long walls, grinding barrels or crunchy peaks.  © Christo Zietsmann | Indian Swell Productions  © Josh Enslin Crowds got pretty thick at some stages cos waves in November ain't exactly a common occurrence, plus throw in some warm water and light wind days and it was every man, his dog, and the kitchen sink on occasion. Even the kitchen sink got waves though.  Matthew Botha decided to get a bit creative at Chomp rock - with a few acid drops - which might have to be called acid hops cos Chomp isn't exactly high. Did succeed in making a few. Don't think he would have been pulling the same stunt earlier in the day though.....   A few blustery days to deal with during the run of swell. You know when the spray off the back of the wave is 5x higher than the wave....then it's a tad breezy.   Two things to thanks for the epic week of waves - the super moon which threw out some huge tidal ranges which musta helped increase swell size. And Big Dave from Surf Centre. Who kindly made himself the surf sacrifice by going shopping with his wife in Cape Town for the week. Dave reports finding some great bra and pantie sets, and would much rather be looking for shoes and dresses than scoring macking JBay.  © Morne Cordon  Dave stoked to be shopping not surfing The CYOH crew held their 4th and final Surf Off series of the year at Sards over the weekend. Good waves, good vibes as always. Grant Beck scored the samurai stabbing rights by taking the win in the Open men's.  © Petronel Posthumus  © Petronel Posthumus Grant needs to take that samurai and hide in the bushes at Millers. Cos the skollies are running rampant there at the moment. Joost had his car nicked out the carpark there on Thursday morning. Kak feeling coming in from your surf...and no cabbie! Not only did they take his wheels, but more importantly his beloved vetkoek was in the back. So please keep eyeballs peeled for this unique board. And moer anyone you see with it. Cos Joost would really love to have it back.  The week got rounded off by a lekker weekend, with a few more waves and a whole lotta sun and kiff weather. Don't you just love PE!?  © Emil Wissink  Sunday beach day  © Robbie Irlam Yeeeuuuw! The waves cranked on Sunday. Out west was firing on all cylinders, and when the wind finally abated somewhat (just went down a notch to howling as opposed to full-out gale) there were some solid solid lines pulling into the bay. Some solid solid thigh muscles were still required to deal with the chop, but if you didn't mind the odd bounce-a-thon you were good. Some loooong rides being had from the top of Millers down to Hobie.   Coupla guys were taking on outside Clubhouse just before dark. Pretty hefty peaks out there. Bell Bouy was breaking, but no takers. If you were in the know, the sheltered spots down the road offered early morning waves protected from the pomping wind. But if you were stuck in PE you had to wait patiently for the arvo wind swing.  © Flaviana Kupczyk  © Gavin Rother Must be a lot of truth to the saying "It's a dog's life" - cos Supertubes shutterbug Robbie Irlam's mutt seems to be fully in the loop with some swell checking.  © Robbie Irlam  © Robbie Irlam Wind can be both our friend and foe. It generates the swells we ride, but it also shreds 'em to bits at times. Was a frustrating morning for Bay surfers to see awesome lines get chop sueyed. There were a few UFO's spotted flying about....  © Kody McGregor Down the coast also felt the brunt of the big south swell and spring tide combo. Classic shot of the BI getting smashed. Lekker if you living on the 10th floor and pop out and leave the window open - and come home to find a few elf flapping about on the floor. Turns out this is actually a shot from a coupla years back - but too good not to share.  © Vinthi Vinni Nueufeld The super spring low tides meant that at some spots it looked like someone had pulled the plug outta the ocean. Got peeps a bit nervy about tsunami's after NZ had a big quake on Sunday. Anytime you see the ocean drain out you gotto be on your toes.  © Stan Blumberg Big tide's cos of the big super moon - gonna be the biggest and brightest moon in 68 years. If anyone you know goes a bit bedonderd, just take a glance upwards. Ain't called lunatics for nothing!  © Nick Cadle (Jan 2014) Loggers - make sure you diarise the date - end of November is the Longboard EP Closed (aka NMBS Closed). Roving venue to make sure the best waves on the day get ridden. Everyone welcome to enter.  Plenty of sealife around in the early parts of the week. Huge pods of dolphins cruising the backline, and doing lotsa leaps and twists and generally having a jol. Entertaining to watch the German tourists running excitedly up and down the beach gesticulating wildly. Wonder what the German equivalent of "Ky-daar!" would be? (assumption made that they were German cos of the socks-n-sandals combo that seems iconic to that country.  © Luc Hosten  More locals than locals Not all the dolphins were full of the joys of spring unfortunately. Some became part of the food chain - like this poor chap who washed up on Nahoon beach midweek.  © Dean Knox Onshores were pretty gnarly midweek. Stanley Badger went down to check for some easterly bowls, stuck his head out the window, and ended up with one of these blue buggers plastered to his sunnies. Ok, so he probably went and stuck it there himself, but full marks for being a funny ou.  © Stanley Badger Plenty of discussion this week around the US elections, even the skies in JBay decided to get their votes in.  © Daniel Jeggels The website has got a revamp, so go take a look around. Some kiff shots in the Photo Gallery of all the local spots firing.
Might be a few glitches here and there - so please choon me if you spot any. Specially if you see one of the header images as being a burger and chips! Long story short - the default placeholder looks a bit like a Spur ad. Feel free to drop in some feedback on the new site, suggestions, criticisms, whatever. [email protected] Hope you dig it :-)  © Luc Hosten Another summer's week, with some windy days, some beaut days and even some surf days. Nice lil sneaky east swell which threw out a few backwashy barrels as well. Water is lekker warm, must be hovering round the 20C mark, so good time to dust off the spring suits.  © Chris Scott Not too many ou's in the water out in St Francis bay at the moment as bits of the washed up whale are still floating about, and beachfront residents report seeing some rather large finned fellows cruising the backline frequently. Chatted to John Elliot at Seals, and he mentioned there seems to be more resident seals hanging out at Shark Point - the point between SF and CSF - these days. A growing permanent seal population in the area isn't good news for surfers as it may result in a growing resident finned population, much like what happened in Plett.  © Rosalie Falconer In between the obligatory howling wind days there were some kiff glassy periods. Even the dolphins seem to appreciate the break in the crappy weather and have been out in force on the good days.  © Werner Hills  © Herman Coetsee  © Paul John Wright The CYOH crew held their 3rd Surf Off on Saturday and scored some good waves at Sards. Remember that everyone's welcome at CYOH events - from groms to grandpa's, beginners to shredders. Just pull in and enjoy the lekker vibe and a stoked crew.  © Christo Zietsmann In the market for a new stick? Etienne Potgieter has a whole quiver for sale: Boards from 5'6" to 6'3", for the 60 - 70kg surfer (a couple for 70kg plus). Most in excellent condition, a couple with a light crease, all come with a set of fins. Prices range from R1500 to R3500. Give ET a holler on FB or inbox me for his contact deets.  Last week marked the 6 year anniversary of Andy Irons's passing. Gone but not forgotten. He was one of the world's most frighteningly talented surfers. One who wanted to win more than anything. Some of the young 'un's on the world tour these days could have learnt a thing or two about competitive passion from AI.  Skom skelms are doing the rounds again - coupla break-in's to cars at Millers carpark over the last week. Reckon having a python on the dashbboard would resolve the problem. Note that they're breaking into surf locks as well - all it takes is a good biff with a hammer or spanner and pop - there are ya keys. So if you using surflocks try put em in hard to get to places like in the wheel arch - not just at the back bumper. Houdini makes plastic copies of digital keys - so just get one and leave your keys hidden somewhere in the car and use the plastic key to lock up. Easy to stash in your wetties key ouch or round your neck on a string.  A huge thanks to Shirley Fairall for 10 years of service as secretary to EP Surfing. Not a comp went down without her being there behind the scenes to make sure it all ran smoothly. You deserve a medal Shirley!  Bodyboarders Jason Lodge and Jonathan Scheepers decided they'd paid up their life insurance policies and it was time to dance with death. The crazy boogers decided to have a surf at Brighton Pier over the weekend. It's known to have cranking waves, but the water quality is super-sketch thanks to the sewerage outflow pipe right there - which also draws in the finned fellows - and then of course the 30 ou's chucking sinkers over ya pip as they fish off the pier. Thankfully the guys survived both the land and sea sharks! All limbs still in tact.   Wee bit of swell possibily on the horizon for this week - but winds looking a bit flukey and may spoil the party. How unusual.....  Rincon sunrise © Valento Gouws |
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