The week that was...

© Luc Hosten

Another summer's week. Coupla fun lil waves about here and there during the week if you weren't fussy. Water warm enough for boardshorts some days. Unfortunately the kiff conditions also meant that the red tide made an appearance again. Friday saw a pretty big slick of the stuff snaking all the way from Cape Recife to the harbour.

​There had been a few patches here and there for the last coupla weeks, but this was the first serious showing of the punk phytoplankton in a while. 

Sunday saw some cooking easterly surf pull in to the bay. Hummies was firing. Pretty fast though, plenty got in, not many got out. If you took a drive things got even better. Bruce's had some nugs, although you had to survive the freezing-ass water for your fix. Coupla beachies in the area produced the goods as well. Also claimed a few fibreglass sacrifices too...

Bruce Campbell © Chris Scott

© Kody McGregor

Grant Beck © Chris Scott

Eina. © Chris Scott

Nice new board by Deno coming outta the Boardroom midweek - his take on the Firewire Vanguard, with a few mod's thrown in to keep it fresh. Brett Hoppe was seen taking it for a spin at Millers and it seemed to have plenty of vooma.

​Random co-incidence saw a shot of Pottie (aka Craig Potgieter, ex-local now Aussie local) pop up on my newsfeed. Good to see the semi-ballie going vert on his Vanguard. Just wondering if some Noa Dean/Christian Fletcher aspirations happening - noticed the front deck pad! Pottie reckons it works like a bomb cos it's so cold where he is the wax gets too slippery, plus he says no more wax melting off on his Indo trips! Double whammy from the double deck grip.

West Aus still having it's finned friend issues. Latest incident saw an ou ignore the shark warning cos the waves were cooking. Turns out he wasn't such a breeker after all once the shark started stalking him in the line-up! Luckily nothing happened, other than needing to wash his boardies when he got home. Sure, we aren't on the menu officially, but still pretty stupid not to get out when you see one. Cos you're certainly gonna get out damn quick when he comes past to check you out!

© Frits de Bruyn

Still on the subject of toothy locals, turns out Knysna isn't the best possie to be going for those midnight dips in the lagoon. Dude landed a nice looking raggie at Thesen's Island. No need to panic though, they're pretty harmless guys and are unlikely to nip you unless you happen to stand on them!

Hawaii continues to get pounded my massive swells. El Nino definitely suits the Pacific, pity the same can't be said for the Indian Ocean - we ended up with a kak years surf in 2015 thanks to the the "Little Boy". More like lil critter if you ask me! Hopefully it dissipates soon, and we get some payback surf this winter.

Waimea carnage © Clark Little

The small surf has resulted in a different form of carnage at local breaks - crowd carnage! The absence of surf means ou's are frothing on every lil lump, and plenty of family waves happening. Chris Scott caught this one at Hulett's in SF this week. Six ou's trying to catch one wave. Least they were splitting the peak!

© Chris Scott

Summer days mean lekker conditions for taking shots. Local lensman Dean Cothill has got himself a drone and is no doubt gonna be wow'ing us with some epic aerial shots of our bay soon. Just goes to show we live in a kiff lil town.

© Dean Cothill

Kelly proved he's still the King this week, taking out the Volcom Pipe Pro in flawless conditions. Pipe doesn't get any better than that. Ou's reckoned it wasn't just spitting, it was barfing! Maybe this is the inspiration Slater needs to get back to winning ways on the CT? His 9th place finish last year was his worst in a long while.

Charts are looking not so flash for the bay this coming week. Go wildside or go home it seems. East, east and more east. Onshore bowls or bust. Annoying cos there's a nice 15 sec groundswell that woulda been fun if it wasn't gonna be mushed to burgers by the east.

Thanks to Zuma-muppet my annual subscription to Surfline is now a whopping R1000. $70 doesn't look too bad til you convert it into our funny money. But worth it to see the 17 day forecasts and get the swell forecast maps used on the ML website. Gonna have to find a job that pays in dollars soon!

Cos if you had a few spare bucks you could grab this lekker Indo surf charter boat for only $100k. Saw it on sale and spent the next few hours daydreaming where we could sail it!

Early birds get the worms...

©Chris Scott