The week that was....

© Clive Wright

The first week of Spring bought a few lil waves, and a helluva lot of rain. Spring sprung a leak for sure. The Southern Cape area got the brunt of the rain - with the Wilderness ou's wondering if all the sand washing out a certain river mouth might make for some interesting banks for those prepared to walk. The Plett guys were hoping that their superbank might return but the river didn't break through.

Not Vic Bay, but close by

Lookout in Plett © Brian Salter

Closer to home the Mpofu dam, on the Kromme River, overflowed. Which means the Kromme might finally get rid of all the sand that's been clogging it....which in turn might make for a few nice banks at the mouth. As long as you don't mind sharing your waves with the (finned) locals.

Quite a few nutters pitched for the Spring Day Swim at Hobie. Thanks to the rain they got wet even before they hit the water. So much sand built up on the beach there at the moment thanks to all that got washed down from Avo's and Millers over the past 2 months. Pier showing a few signs of coming back to life in the right conditions. Pity we can't lift a few slats from between the pylons and let some it through to the other side. Was such a good wave about 6 to 7 years ago.

© Dirk Erasmus

Pretty hectic story from the JBay Animal Rescue Sanctuary during the week. A guy found a plastic packet on the beach that had been tied tight....and had squealing little puppies inside. Whilst he was checking it out a fisherman arrived and said they were his live bait for fishing! The guy who found them took them to the Animal Sanctuary and they've all been homed. So please keep an eye out if you're walking along the beach at JBay. Live bait is one thing, but there ain't no place for puppy bait.

© JBay Animal Rescue Sanctuary

White boards are boring, let's face it. Cuan McGregor from PA took the Boardstix to his stick and came up with a rad colourful cubist design. Coupla quick tricks to make sure your board art stays as fresh as the day you paint it. Make sure your board it clean (melt off the wax, wipe it with turps, and then with acetone), give it a light sand so the colour can grip nicely (board must look dull not shiny), do your magic, and then spray an acrylic enamel clear coat over your design to make sure it stays put.

Surfers come up with some weird sh*t at times. Like this thing called a Seal Blade. Scottish dude is looking to raise over 500 000 quid to get it off the ground. Supposedly increases your paddling power by 35%. So move over paddling gloves - here comes the paddling forearm. You gotto admit it's all together a bit bloody odd.

Yip, reckon everyone's amping to look like this ou. Or not.

Remember Filipe Toledo's non-event of a heat at Chopes, where he didn't even catch a wave. Knives were out for the ou, with everyone having a ball Brazzo bashing. Turns out that it might not just have been fear that stopped the youngster from launching himself over the ledge, rumour is that he'd crunched his elbow the day before and was sporting 5 stitches in it - making it pretty eina to try push up into standing. Still - if you gonna paddle out might as well have a go.

The best lighties in the country will be tearing apart the walls of Lower Point soon, with the Billabong SA Junior Champs starting at the end of the month. Hopefully the kids score some cooking surf, and hopefully our local lighties will kick butt on home turf.

Many of the local lighties are on a European mission at the moment - hitting France, Spain and Portugal for the QS comps. Getting some good placings here and there, so should be a good warm-up for our premier junior event in a few weeks time.

Maintenance to the Pier is progressing, albeit slowly. Railing are going up at last, so should be ready for summer hopefully. Wonder if maintenance includes doing a clean of all the mussels along the slats between the pillars - crazy sharp lil critters you have to make your way over to get from Hobie to the surf.

© Bluewaters Cafe

Not too shabby to get sponno'd by Merc. Garret McNamara, big wave hellman, is gonna be riding a tow board designed by the Merc peeps this (European) winter. And if it's flat? No worries, hook up the Merc with a tow rope and drive it along the beach. Too easy. 

Garrett mentions that Merc's 3 pointed star logo stands for land, air and sea. Didn't know that. So he has car covered (land), board covered (sea) - so guess they'll have to give him a jet so he can tick the air box!?

Not sure if El Nino is pissing the sharks off, but they really seem to be a lot more quizzical than normal this year. Another incident in Aus - this time a ballie on a surf ski got munched. Ou reckons was like getting driven in to by a jetski at full speed. Got his leg chomped to the bone and a solid snack on his ankle.