The week that was....

© Dean Cothill

Pretty quiet week as far as surfing goes, a coupla waves about if you made the effort, whether it was driving past a boom or further out west. Big Dave's been spotted test driving his new "short" board in JBay recently. It takes a pretty high volume board to allow a big ou to plant both feet on the same side of the rail!

Dave Lippie © Robbie Irlam

The swell period picked up a bit on Sunday arvo with a few fun one's rolling through. The Seal Point Boardriders picked a good day to hold their club comp with some very contestable waves on hand. Water a fair bit nippier than the bay, but waves a whole bunch better.

© Richard Arderne

Sunday saw the swell jack big-time in CT. Which resulted in some good pits, as well as the prospect of getting pitted by boards it appears. Neil Bradfield capturing this shot at Kom of a rather close call. Pretty swak of the ou bailing on the duckdive and nearly axing the guy on the wave. 

© Neil Bradfield

It was one of those "drive-and-look" kinda weeks. Nothing much on offer but ou's amped to try find something rideable to get wet on anyway. Maybe standing on the railing makes the waves seem bigger?

© Jackie Rumbelow

Barry and Greg Heasley landed with their bums in the butter after heading up to the Maldives for a sneaky surf trip, and hooking straight in to some tropical perfection and getting tubed off their pips for the first 3 days of their trip. Jealous?

I was doing a bit of remote surf guiding for them cos their local surf guide was a bit sketch. Turns out I wasn't much better! Checking the charts showed bogger-all swell for the western atolls so advised them against the trek over there. Luckily they chose to roll the dice anyway and risk it, and scored some fun 2-4ft peelers. Just goes to show you never know unless you go....and never trust the charts!

Not bad for the first day of your surf trip! Greg Heasley slotted

Sad news that surfing legend “Midget” Farrelly, the father of modern Australian surfing and the winner of the inaugural World Surfing Championships in 1964, passed away this week. RIP.

Midget Farrely © Alby Falzon

The SA team is over in Costa Rica for the 2016 ISA Surfing Games. Strong EC presence with SA team captain Faye Zoetmulder, Dylan Lightfoot, Matthew John McGillivray and prez Johnny Bakker. Good luck ou's!

© Hannelie Bakker

​Make your way down to Banzai Pipe on the 13th of August for the Madibaz Surf Club's annual competition in association with Billabong, who have got some lekker prizes up for grabs.

Divisions as follows: 
Open Mens/Women (20-34) 
University division 
Juniors Boys/Girls (u/17)
Masters (35+).

Everyone's welcome. Entry fee is R100 for everyone except valid student card holders which will pay R50 - cos everyone knows student's are poor (translated as meaning "only spend bucks on booze and everything else considered expensive")

Always something interesting happening out the window. This week's "WTF is that" moment happened during my 100th surf check of the day, and spotted a dude cruising right down the middle of Marine Drive on his skateboard. No worries about cars and all that, he was pushing 'n gliding his way his way merrily along. odd. To say the least. Although admittedly that tar is oh-so-lekker smooth. (best time to skate it car-free is the day before the Ironman and Ironman morning, as roads are closed)

The rainbow late on Voting Day proved to be a good omen for our Rainbow Nation, as the DA won victory in the NMB municipality. Here's hoping they fix a few things in our town and make it super-lekker again.