The week that was...

My front yard for the next month © Russell Ord

Great waves and good internet seem mutually exclusive. So the price I'm paying for solo sessions at a super fun right point means the internet is like dial-up modem days, when it actually works. Luckily the stars aligned and it's now onshore at the same time the internet finally decides to work like it should - meaning I can get a blog post out whilst not worrying about missing any waves!

© Etienne Venter

The bay's been flat as a pan for ages now, but at least the dolphins are still doing their daily rounds. A pod pulled in to the surf at Jbay yesterday to check out all the Vaalies. And not to be outdone the PE pod aired a few waves.

© Heather Nel

Opening of the Season bought the usual mayhem to the beachfront. Lekker fireworks but a helluva mess left to contend with afterwards. The municipality not too sharp at the moment with getting the clean-ups done. Be super careful on the beach these days as plenty of broken glass and bottles just waiting to chow your foot.

© Karin Anker

© Karin Anker

Summer means lotsa onshore, and that brings all the sea critters and other bits n bobs in to shore. There is plenty of seaweed lurking about at Cape Recife at the moment. Definitely a good reason to go leash-free if you surfing Cobbles. Nothing slows you down quite like a ton of seaweed caught in your leash.

© Luc Hosten

Christmas is just round the corner, and shopping is easy for the surfer in your life. Anything surf related will get a big smile. Pop past your local surfshop, Surf Centre, or your local shaper, the Boardroom, and grab a new or new-to-you stick. 

© The Boardroom

I highly recommend getting some RSPro Hexatraction as a Xmas pressie to yourself or the surfer in your life. This stuff rocks. Been riding it for a month now, plus a week here in the tropics, and it just kicks waxes ass flat out. Neat lil transparent bits of grip that you stick to your deck and let's you chuck away the wax. No melt on car seat issues, no stick to boardies issues, and no need to bum wax in the car park. Surf Centre has some in stock now, and if they sold out they can probably order it in quick as a flash. Chat to Gav or Chris at the shop. Cost is about a years worth of wax.

My board has the RSPro cork grip plus the hexa, Garths board is full hexa.

Congrats to Cape St Francis surfers Brad Beck and Hannah Bing for tying the knot. The couple who have been surf guiding round the world the past 5 years popped home to get hitched.

In the absence of surf in the bay just nip around the corner to see what's on offer. If nothing much is happening you can always do some rock pool exploring, as plenty of that on the wild side. Plus some kiff swimming gullies.

© Luc Hosten

Schoenies swimming holes © Luc Hosten

Coupla new world champs were crowned this past week. SA surfer Antony Smythe won the men's adaptive World Title and Gabe Median took out the WSL. It's Medina's second world title, and hos first Billabong Pipeline Masters win. Nice double whammy to land. Jordy Smith snagged his best ever finish at the Pipe Masters with a 3rd, and ended up the season in 5th spot.

In between all the world title race drama, King Kelly still managed to steal the show for a while with a fall-off-in-the-barrel-and-climb-back-on-board-and-exit-standing move that had everyone scratching their heads. Youtube it.

East Cape locals who did well on the WQS were JBay's Matt McGillivray (30th) and Dylan Lightfoot (98th). Both cracking the Top 100 for the year. 

Matt shacked

Besides summer meaning no surf, it also means plenty of high pressure systems and the funky clouds that accompany them. Like these streaky bacon types spotted on the beachfront last week.

© Leonie Bartlett

The locals turned up in force to welcome back JBay's Steven Sawyer from Taiwan after he won the World Longboard Champs. Other East Cape surfers at the event included St Francis's Crystal Hulett and PE's Alfonso Peters.

Not often we get celebs in PE, so when Steve-O from Jackass fame popped in for a few waves the locals were frothing to share the line up with this legend. One even asked him to kick him in the balls in true Jackass style, but Steve-O politely declined! Him and his mates had hired boards from Surf Centre, and Steve-O so dug the Rebel minimal he rented he ended up buying it. 

PE local Andy Rother has a neat gig working on a surf exploration yacht, and now finds himself in Tahiti with some sucky lil left barrels to play with. Fence training paying off.

And guess what's reared it's ugly head again. The Fish Farm!!! Making a comeback after a few years in the wilderness, the government yet again wants to try prove that fish farming in Algoa Bay is a good idea. Turns out that Algoa 1, the spot just off Pipe, is still on the cards, albeit a reduced size in the latest proposal. A new site just off of Coega has also been proposed.

So looks like we gonna have to kick up a fuss yet again to get the peeps at DAFF to realise that is just a super shit idea. Please go and register as an Interested and Affected Party (IAP) by emailing the ou's doing the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). That means they gotto officially keep you in the loop about all the public participation meetings and you can also register your disapproval of the whole shebang.

​You can read the new fish farm proposal here:
​https://anchorenvironmental.co.za/node/344

Here's what to do:
​Email: [email protected]
Say: I want to register as an Interested and Affected Party for the SEA-BASED AQUACULTURE DEVELOPMENT ZONE ALGOA BAY, EASTERN CAPE (project 1808).

I object to the project on the following basis: write why you think it's a kak idea (saying "feck off" isn't construed as a meaningful objection, so try write something sensible in order to be taken seriously! So whether you think it's gonna look ugly, affect our water quality negatively, create pollution on our beaches, increase risk of shark attack, increase prevalence of red tide or whatever you don't like about it)

Note: add a read receipt to make sure they get it - I had to email twice before I got a response.

The success in getting the original Fish Farm proposal quashed was the mass participation of so many peeps in lodging their dismay at the idea. So same required this time. Luckily some on-the-ball readers spotted the new proposal and shot me an email about it. So let's get the objections rolling!

Public Participation meetings are scheduled for January so will give you a heads up once they are announced. Kinda looks like they were trying to sneak it all through at the end of the year when peeps on holiday in the hope that no-one will notice...but we did!

What's a week without a lekker sunset, and as usual these delivered!

​Wishing everyone a lekker Christmas and New Year and hoping you all score some waves! Not sure when gonna get online again, so apologies in advance for irregular updates to the website and blog.

© Luc Hosten