The week that was....

Martin Hartslief © Robbie Irlam

Finally we had some decent surf. Been a while coming. Lekker day Wednesday and Thursday. If you missed it be miserable. PE had some seriously fun waves, and Jbay had some bombs. Hopefully everyone got their fill, cos this week looks a bit slow again. Looks like a one day outta seven kinda forecast. Don't miss the one day....

© Richard Mangold

Wednesday saw some solid stuff at the top of the bay. Sets breaking out way beyond the line-up and the clean up sets kept everyone on their toes. Andre Clarke reckons he got his longest wave ever in PE. Always lekker when the banks are all lined up out there. Cos normally it's a case of hunting four leaf clovers, But when the stars align. Just speak to the man on the red and black mini-simmons, he'll tell you it's worth the wait.....

Late arvo Millers © Chris Taljaard

You know the surf has to be impressive to break a bunch of boards. Wednesday arvo saw one longboard become two shortboards - which is a good deal if you value quantity over quality; and Thursday morning had the bowl at Pipe making snapstix outta Kyle Rubin and Dane Cox's shredsleds. 

© Greg Smith

The weather was pretty schizophrenic this week. From hot summers days, to pretty rainbows to hail. Yes. Hail. Sitting out there late arvo surf and ou's moaning about how chillo's it is and wondering if they becoming wimps....and not 2 minutes later the heaven open and pour mini-size golf balls on our heads. OK, a lot smaller than golf balls. But hail nonetheless. Hurts like crap too. Would hate to know what it's like to get pinged by bigger one's. Wonder if you can claim from insurance for hail dings to your board?? 

© Luc Hosten

© Ellie Bottomley

Flip, can't remember who took this pic, sorry!!

Groms can be clever lil critters when they want. Howz this neat word play on his new Fishstix. Give you an A for English lightie!

© Fishstix

Good week for mini-micro-groms this week. Dave Leverington's lil 'un got her first surfboard from Surf Centre and that grin tells you she's pretty stoked about this whole thing. Nick Waring's lil 'un has got his anti-shark suit on, perfect for a day at Sards.

A few weird misty days in among the rainbows, beaut days and hail. As always Luc captured it perfectly out at Schoenies.

© Luc Hosten

And Basil aced this shot at Millers on Sunday evening when the fog bank rolled in. Not sure what use a brolley is in fog, but it does make for a cool pic.

© Basil Parker

Some ex-PE locals got up to all sorts of crazy watersports this week. I reckon Wes Wiehan is the first ou from the bay to have a go on a flyboard. Making it all look soooo easy!

​Carl Barnard took a break from crewing on his luxury superyacht to have a go at the flowrider. Was bigger than most days at Pipe....

© Wes Wiehahn

© Carl Barnard

Things got a bit nippy mid-week, with temps in the corner at Seals dropping down to a frigid 12C. Turning boys into girls. Even the bay had a bit of an ice-cube feel to it at times.

© Richard Arderne

Gotto love those back in the day moments, when your dad uncovers a letter you wrote to some potential sponsors angling for free goodies. Cos back in those days you wrote letters. With a pen, On paper. Dennis Ellis way pre-internet era claiming a bit of skating skills to try scam some freebies. Might have been using some extreme poetic license claiming to be a pro skateboarder though!

© Pat Ellis

Some mullet ship discharged a bunch of oil in the bay and the slick ended up making a whole stack of penguins poofy. Both Sanccob and Samrec have being doing a great job cleaning these critters up. If you're able to help then please give em a holler to offer your services. Tiring work so the more the merrier.

Shot to Ryan Anderson and the Loggers Union crew, who together with Pine Lodge, Cape Recife Conservancy and the NMB Municipality have made a lekker deck out at Cobbles, which will let the ou's chill out and watch the surf whilst preventing dune erosion. You do have to laugh at the usual lame headline. At least it wasn't the usual "cowabunga" effort! Newspaper peeps just don't get this surfy stuff.

Gordon Munro has developed the ultimate man-flu cure. Just gooi on your wettie and sweat it out. Here's Gordo getting some work done whilst getting the sweat on. 7mm dive suit, nogal. Wonder if whoever buys this painting will ever know the artists was wettie-clad when he did it?

© Paul Munro

The Something Good Surf Classic went down on Saturday in some beaut weather. Super fun vibe on the beach, compete with DJ's in wetsuits. Robert Jacobs showing that tough ou's don't mind handling 30C weather in a wettie. Well done to Merv and the guys for organising a kiff comp to raise some bucks for NMB Surfriders. 

© Mervyn Goddard

In other comp news, NMBS got a good 3rd possie at the Billabong SA Champs surfed at Long Beach in CT. Thanks in part to some solid results from our ladies - Britney Linder getting a 2nd in the u20's and Faye Zoetmulder a 4th in the Open Ladies. Well done team!

Seals local Grant Beck paddled into his first wave at Dungeons this week. It must be pretty terrifying, intimidating, scary or all of the above! But you pay to play, and he took a SOLID set on the head which snapped his leash. Nonetheless he's frothing about having the opportunity to have a stab at it - and much respect to him for gooi'ing himself over the ledge on a monster. Add that to a 5th spot at the SA Champs and you'd be safe in saying Grant had a pretty rad week.

© Alan van Gysen

Plenty happening this past week. As well as plenty reminders that we live in a really tit lil town. Lekker weather. Crazy weather. Kiff beaches. Fun waves. Mellow crew. Everywhere only 15 minutes away. Who the hell wants to live anywhere else? Ok, well maybe Maldives. Or Indo. But good 'ol PE ain't half bad.

​#localislekker

© Emil Wissink