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Another year of waves, wind, flat spells, solid surf, kiff sunrises and sunsets, and all sorts of stuff in between. Here's a look at the year gone by. There were waves....   © Shané Pyke   and even bigger ones out west....  Pic: Robbie Irlam Sometimes so big they went left instead of right....  There were waves at the end of the road...  Ad there there was the ever present wind. Cos what would PE be without wind?   A few weird things came past the bay....   Pic: Christopher Scott Ad the usual things swam in it.  Maitlands dropin : Luc Hosten  Pic: Heather Nel There were beach days...  © Susan Howard And things on the beach....  Pic : Luc Hosten Then there were things walking around the things on the beach...  Pic : Luc Hosten New waves were discovered...  And good old faithfuls still remained  Pipe: Vaughan Deacon We have pipes....  © Gideon Brunsdon ...and pillars  Pic: Pierre de Villiers Plenty of good days to take a walk on the boardwalk...  Pic: Richard Saunders Or on the wild side  Pic: Benita Page Even our rocks got romantic this year.  Pic: Gideon Brunsdon It was a year of creating legends,  Josh Enslin fastest human on a surfboard And saying goodbye to them,  RIP Turtle Morris We had fireworks to mark the Opening of the Season,  © Rob Blignaut But we actually had a fiery start to the beginning  © Nicola Ashleigh Webber  © Andrew Garai and end of most days. PE sunrises and sunsets delivered again this year.  Pic: Jarred Cassidy    Even our moon-rises were pretty neat  Pic: Peter Schwartz  Pic: Dean de Lange There were new kids on the block...  And some not so new,  Pic: Mervyn Goddard As 2017 rolls by into the sunset, and 2018 dawns, may your year be full of waves and happiness for if we could all just smile even a half as much as Star the world would be a better place.  Pic: Jays Knots/Etienne Stassen We live in a kiff lil town, and it would be that much kiffer if 2018 delivered some smoking surf to us. Let's live in hope!  Pic: Luc Hosten  © Rob Blignaut The season is officially open - the booms, bangs and flashes announced it's arrival this weekend. Gotto love fireworks. Pity no fireworks in the ocean, but that's summer for ya. Have to make do with the onshore lumps...and the fun glassy days in between.  © Loggers Union  © Loggers Union  The JBay Loggers Classic scored some really kiff waves at the Point. The Loggers Union from PE took part in the Interclub division and had a blast.  © Tjelke Angelbauer Klatte's Summer always means everyone's frothing to learn to surf, so lotsa newbies hitting the water and getting their first injection of stoke. Be patient with the kooks - we all had to start somewhere!  © Colin McKenzie Summer means south easterlies - and they haven't disappointed! In Cape Town they call them the Cape Doctor cos it blows all the pollution away. In PE they just blow us away!  © Pierre de Villiers Wave size is all about perspective, so if summer is getting you down cos it's dribbly surf, ditch the board and grab a pair of fins and head out for a body surf - cos everything's overhead and the chance of a barrel is pretty good!  Thursday © At The Beach Summer might be iffy surf but the sunrise and sunsets still keep on delivering. Africa really does do those properly! And in PE we lucky to have the option to see both sunrise and sunset over the ocean.  © Luc Hosten There's always waves somewhere, even if the bay isn't happening. Kowie local Peter Brotz was up in Namibia on a fishing mission, and was kicking himself for not having a board with him. Empty peeling left handers far as the eye could see.  © Peter Britz For those ou's thinking about a career in shaping - just remember you gotto enjoy being covered in paint and fibreglass dust 24/7. Deno doesn't seem to mind! So just remember when you fetch your shiny new sled from the Boardroom that there's been some blood, sweat and tears that's gone into it.  Fence locals have had some seasonal locals more into their hood for the summer - Playland is up and running - so for a coupla weeks you'll be walking past the roller coasters as you head back to your cabbie from the surf. Playland has always been beachfront based - back in the day it used to be where the City Lodge is now above Humewood. So you could get a real birds eye view of Hummies from the top of the Big Wheel. Drone-eye view in the days before drones.  © Nick Patsalos The new edition of the Boardtalk hit shelves this week - so head over to Surf Centre to grab your copy of the local East Cape surf mag.  Have to wave goodbye to our second home soon, a month has just flown by. Fun waves, good fishing, great snorkeling, lots of deserted islands and sandbanks. Life might be tough in Africa, but it's sure tough in the Maldives too. If you keen on hooking some kiff waves in paradise, then check out: www.sailshantaram.com  Gonna be swapping one paradise for another soon, and heading over to Indo for a while. Our mate has just opened a small surf resort there and we're gonna go test-drive it for a few weeks. It's got a kiff right point out front, and a heap of other lekker waves nearby. Will do a full review of the possie once we sussed it out - but will be a good deal for Saffa's on the ZAR.  Might be a few fun waves during the week, so keep your eye's peeled. Happy holidays!
 © Marcus Ducker Plenty of barrels around if you knew where to look - and had been religiously doing your 4 hours of yoga a day so you could bend and kink yourself into them! Remember it's always possible to get barreled - just ditch the board and head out for a bodysurf!  © Colin MacKenzie A mixed bag week, with some beaut days and some bustery one's. It's that time of year when the wind pomps one way, and in the space of an hour pomps the other way - gotto be super quick on the ball to catch the tiny window for decent surf in between the pomps! A wind gust of 111km/hr was recorded this week.  No matter the weather the bay's dolphins are always happy to put on a show. Heather Nel was lucky enough to capture an awesome shot of a bit of synchronised swimming - or make that jumping - by the friendly fins.  © Heather Nel Oh man. Nothing beats a new stick. Especially with it's your very first new stick. Then you can't wipe the smile of your dial. Like lil David here. Been a regular at Millers for a while now with his pop Jonty pushing him in to some peelers. He has improved in leaps and bounds and now gets some long rights once dad has given him a bit of help getting on the wave. I reckon he'll be ripping on his new stick!  From fresh sticks to fresh sponsors. After many years as a Fox team rider, JBay local Dylan Lightfoot has been picked up by O'Neil. Hopefully the Supers local will continue his onward and upward trajectory and continue to stack up some solid results in the comps this year.  Runs around Cape Recife are never dull - sometimes you bump into the locals. Not sure how these dudes manage to maneuver over the rocks but they seem to have pretty good balance despite looking pretty unbalanced!  © Bruce Campbell Nelson Mandela Bay Surfriders are fortunate to have a dedicated crew of peeps who make sure surfing in our province runs the way it should. At the recent NMBS awards evening JBay shaper Thys Strydom received a well deserved recognition award received for years of dedication and commitment to the development of surfing in the province.  © Petronel Posthumus It was only fitting that e was called on to test the newly launched Boneyard Dark Lager made by the Jeffreys Bay Craft Brewery. Try it out next time you head west down the N2.  Something Good decided to it's own version of Playland, with Big O Sports setting up some larger-than-life blow-up slides. Even the "breeze" didn't put a damper on things.  © Something Good When the surf isn't delivering you have to go look for waves in the unlikeliest places. Anyone for a seashell barrel?  Plan B if there is no surf is to go buy surf stuff. Why not head down to the Boardroom and pick up a new stick - some kiff new mini-mals for just R5200.  Still floating about north of the equator. Can't say am missing the holiday beachfront chaos at all! Haven't been near a car for a month, or a pair of shoes for that matter. Lots to love about boat life.   © Robbie Irlam Summers here. Lekker beach days, some fun lil waves, days getting longer which means more surf time. What's not to love about summer!?  © John McCarthy Get used to seeing some strange boards in the line-ups - seems like the hydrofoils are starting to get popular. Not sure what it feels like to get ridden over by one of those - hopefully someone else volunteers as the guinea pig to find out!  Jonathan McGillivray © @nixmenton Even the penguins got in on the summer vibe - with a bunch of them getting released by SAMREC/SANCCOB over the weekend. They always have a bit of a bewildered look when they get tipped out the boxes and realise they getting kicked outta the B&B and back into the real world. Wonder if given the choice they might actually rather stay!?  © SAMREC/SANCCOB Big-ass full moon on Sunday. With the accompanying extreme tides. If you were in JBay you could just ride right up on the beach and not worry about the reef at all. Some decent surf out there - although the bay didn't deliver too much.  © Luc Hosten Always lekker seeing aerial shots of our bay. Sure - we ain't Cape Town, but we proud of our lil possie nonetheless. We have some rad beaches, and what's even better (other than when the skelms break into your cabbie) is that parking is easy to find, is right at the beach and free. Try getting that lucky in Cape Town!  © Woodrow Wilson Ex-PE surfer Tony le Roux was stoked with his birthday pressie from his daughter - a blown-up shot of a great pic of the PE long board revival back in 1985. Sure beats a pair of white socks and a handkerchief - which used to be standard pressies for dad back in the day.   Pipe longboard compo, circa 1985/6. In the car park at Pipe - check the flats in the background, still there. Starting with the ou on the left that's half cut off: Micheal Mee (now in NZ), Nick Taylor (PE), Turtle Morris (UK), Nick Pike (EL), Dave Collins (PE), Brad Wanwig (PE), Tony Le Roux (Aus), Steve McKechnie (US), Justin Erasmus (PE), Brian Knolls (deceased), Martin Heines (PE), Mike Castingnani (PE). PE surfers are a talented bunch. Simon Le Gras makes some epic lil sculptures, how's this dude with his hang five? Reckon the WSL guys should get him to make the trophies for next years JBay Open.  © Simon le Gras Shot to the NMBS committee for yet another year of tireless service making sure surfing in our province gets run the way it should. These guys do so much work behind the scenes to make it happen, so a big shout out to all involved.  © Petronel Posthumus The Intervarsity Champs went down in some good surf on the wildside. UCT just pipped NMU for the win (only sneaking in by 8 points).  © Petronel Posthumus Summer days normally mean hectic beach crowds, but you can still find your own patch of sand if you know where to go. St Francis looking quiet before the hordes of Gautengers arrive. Expect Seals to be rather busy for the next while.  © Chris Scott Hobie Beach had a few pearler days. Always cool to see all the brolleys out. Although not sure how peeps manage to lie on the sand all day and bake. Sit on a board all day and wait for waves, sure thing. Sit on a beach all day, hmm, can't say I can manage that.  Wednesday at Hobie © Susan Howard GoPro's give the coolest angles. You can take a wee lil wave and make it look gnarly. Marcus Ducker is shooting some kiff water shots on both the wild side and in the bay. Generally you have to shoot about 100 pics and maybe 1 works out well. But when it does, it's worth all the effort!   © Marcus Ducker Yip - can never get enough of aerial shots of PE....  © Mike Holmes Trust surfers to always find something new. Turns out that you don;t need a whole six pack of Red Bull to get you frothing for the session - all that's required is a bottle of Barbie Water and you good to go - and apparently it also make your hair lekker blonde as well. Double whammy bonus.  © Jean du Toit Love this shot from Armand Pou. Imagine hopping into a time machine going back a 100 years to when there were actually ships on the slipway - and then of course at the same time spying a kiff lil peeper breaking off the pillars - and being the only one out there - cos hey - no-one knew about surfing back then!  @armand_93 That's it for the week that was - ending off with a great show from Peter Schwartz of the full moon presiding over my front yard. Even looked like a little wave running down the reef.  © Peter Schwartz Been getting a coupla fun slides north of the equator. Nothing to moan about when the waters 28C, and you know the chances of another surfer turning up are absolutely zero!  |
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March 2021
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