The week that was

© Christo Zietsmann

Winter finally decided to deliver the goods in it's last week. But deliver it did. Really good surf the whole week with mostly favourable winds, despite the storm on Thursday arvi. Great to see Hummies making a bit of a come-back. The sand still isn't quite right, but at least it broke. It also broke a few boards in the process. Pay to play.

Even the pier tried to work. Still backwashy on the dead low, but you could get a few. Clubhouse was certainly the pick of the bunch on the bigger days. Pity no-one got any shots of it doing it's thing.

Rumour has it that Denvils put on a few cameo performances as well, with super round nuggets on offer, although the make-ratio wasn't that high. But worth the rinse and spin cycle for some serious shade time. 

Check out Latest Shots for all the pics of the week.

© Christo Zietsmann

Nup - you don't wanna try hop up the wall on the high tide. Just missed him getting swamped by a set.

Even Millers had barrels © Karla Newton

Possibly not the right week to eventually take the banner down. pick a flat day why don't ya!? © Luc Hosten

If PE was cooking you know JBay and further west was going off it's pip. Bruce's saw some epic sessions go down, as did Jbay. You know if legend surf photag Alan Van Gysen is in town to shoot it's gotto be decent. It meant some of the lucky locals got a coupla kiff water shots of their exploits - like this one of Trevor Hansen putting his recent Indo barrel training to good use.

Trevor Hansen pitted © AVG

Warren Dean © Robbie Irlam

Unfortunately the biggest wipeout of the week wasn't by a surfer. A chokka boat ran around on the shallow sandbar at the entrance to Port St Francis and then got into mechanical difficulties - which resulted in it getting washed onto the dolosse and smashed to smithereens. Thankfully all the crew was saved due to some quick sharp action by the locals & NSRI.

© Neil Jones

It was a case of surf all day and watch surfing all night....cos Chopes delivered. On steroids. Widely hailed as the best CT event in history, the surf went ballistic and the ou's stepped up and charged. Wipeouts were gnarly, but barrels were just crazy. To have 2 guys both get 19.7 heat totals like in the John John vs Kelly heat is unheard of. Follow that with a final were Medina wins by 0.03. That's a comp for you. The Billabong Pro Tahiti will long be remembered, that ain't a maybe.

The week's winning streak continued with Dalen Davidson scoring himself the kiff Billabong hamper worth R1600 for picking Medina to take the title. Most ou's had picked JJ or Kelly, so your odds were good for the win if you went with Gabe.

The funky skies we've been having lately were due to a massive fire in the Elands River area - on the hills above Gamtoos - which burnt for days. Gave us a few great sunsets, but devastating for the farmers in the area.

Fire & water © Robbie Irlam

Mind those feet at Millers at the moment. Plenty of sand has washed off the reef, leaving about an extra 5m of new reef exposed....which is as sharp as sh*t, and just looking for a juicy toe or instep to snack on. Seen someone cut themselves on it every day this week. Carnivorous bit of rock that is.

Chris the car guard at Pipe has been transformed into Jack Sparrow thanks to the donation of a pirates hat. Maybe he yells "harr, harr, me hearties" when he chases the ou trying to break into your car. Further donations of an eye-patch, cutlass and parrot would complete the look...

Separated at birth? © Mervyn Goddard

The waves dropped off over the weekend but the adrenalin levels didn't - a shark scare at Avo's kept everyone on their toes - check out the full story here.

So there we have it. A flipping good last week of winter. Woulda preferred it if we'd had this all winter - but beggars can't be choosers. Here's hoping spring surprises us....

The last run-around before dark © Kody McGregor