The week that was....

1/29/2017

Yeeeuw, coupla waves towards the end of the week saw everyone get their salt-water dose of happy hormones. PE surfers are nothing if not a patient, stoic lot. We know if we wait long enough something eventually has to sneak round the corner into the bay.

What never sneaks anywhere is the damn wind though, and it did it's obligatory pomp on Saturday. The poor ou's surfing longboard trials at Pipe had to do some serious work getting their noses down against the howling offshore. Props to Remi Peterson who took down World no 2 Steve Sawyer for the win.

Some really good news this week is that a bunch of skollies were bust trying to break into a surfer's car at Millers on Thursday. Some sharp work by local surfer and Die Burger photographer, Werner Hills, made it all happen.

Werner was cruising past the beach on a surf check and spotted some suspicious behaviour in the car park. He sussed the guys out for a while, realised they were up to skelm-stuff, and went to grab the police. The ou's were arrested just as they were about to steal the car. You can check out the whole story here - kinda like a CSI episode!
http://www.millerslocal.co.za/blog/skollies-bust

More good news is that our on-the-ball DA Councillor Dean Biddulph has been having some meetings with the Boardwalk trying to solve the taxi chaos at the robots at the entrance. Anyone who drives along the beachfront regularly knows all about avoiding that left lane!

The car-stealing skollies might have been dealt with, but the general skollies are still about. Stephen Stacey had his grey RVCA jacket with bank cards, drivers license and cellphone nicked from the boardwalk bench at Millers on Sunday morning. So keep your stuff safe, and your eye's wide open.

The much-needed rain didn't quite materialise, but we did get a few dark clouds and a coupla claps of thunder. Shayne Minnot scored an epic shot of the lightening out at Kenton.

Rain we didn't get. Wind we did. The lil wind anemometer at the airport was blowing it's pip off on Saturday at about 70km/h. Luckily Pipe has some good protection from the blocks of flats over the road, so if you didn't mind a bit of chop there were some waves to be had.

Pipe © Caiti Allison

JBay doesn't mind a bit of a blow © Robbie Irlam

Rincon looking breezy © Heather Nel

Stormy Seals © Chris Scott

Still had to pay our penance with a serious midweek flat spell before the ocean woke up towards the end of the week. Flat as in very blerrie flat. So flat that there wasn't even so much as a ripple lapping on the shore at Hobie Beach. The sea just seamlessly ended on the sand. Like a lake.

In the absence of any surf to check on the obligatory pre-work morning surf-check Gavin Rother was happy to find a new company car instead. Spotted this beaut in the car park at Hobie. It was there with it's mates, an Aston Martin and two Nissan GTR's,

RIP Surfing Magazine. The end of an era as yet another mag bites the dust in the digital age. Print images are iconic in a way digital can never be. The curated permanence of print vs the instantly-available-instantly -forgettable world of digital. Turning a page in a surf mag and coming across a double page spread that just blows your mind can never be replicated by on screen viewing. Ever.

John McCarthy, editor of the now-defunct Bomb Surf mag (an epic mag if ever there was one), raised some good points: "I have to say the fact that Zigzag still exists in this day and age is incredible. As someone who has walked that walk I understand the challenges that Andy Davis and his team face every single time they square up to put an issue out. I'm not talking about digital publishing, anyone can do that.

I'm talking about actually creating a hard copy, something you can hold in your hands, spill your cornflakes or your beer over and go back to time and again. Surf Magazine publishing is fast becoming a dying art and the end of Surfing is just one more notch in the mag grim reaper's belt for our kind. I know that guy, he came for me

Zag, if I'm not mistaken, is the second or third longest running surf mag in the world, think about that for a mo. It's biggest danger and threat is our apathy. So when you see it on the shelves folks, understand the Herculean task that has gone into getting it there, and slip a copy into your basket. For goodness sakes, it is the price of one craft beer! There is a small passionate army of people who toil for little reward to create that thing, who will keep doing it as long as you keep showing them the love. #letsmakezagthelongestrunningsurfmagintheworld"

Well said John. So peeps, next time you spot the Zag - buy it! Better yet, subscribe.

PE might be a lil town, but it sure has some talented locals. Spotted these kiff caps pop up on my timeline during the week. Done by local illustrator Ryan Allan. You can tune Ryan via his FB page if you'd like to own some custom headwear, or ask him to do a design just for you. Nothing that this dude can't conjure up with his Posca pens. He'll be down at the Food Truck Friday event next week if you wanna hook past to grab one.

The Groms had their first trial of the season and lucked into some decent surf at Pipe, so there were plenty of frothing lighties.

Pretty big visitor pulled into port this week. The Queen Mary popped past for a quick day's visit. Thankfully PE was on it's best behaviour and there was no wind. Wondering if we could get it to come more often?

At 149 000 tons she should throw off a decent wake, so shoulda asked her to cruise a bit closer to shore to make a few waves. Ou's surf tanker wake in Texas, so why can't we get some cruiser-wake?

The storm clouds made for some moody skies in the latter part of the week. I don't think it's possible for PE to go a whole week without throwing up some sort of spectacular sunrise or sunset. Just another reason to love our lil town.

Not too much to get excited about for the coming week surf-wise, but should be a few days you can get wet on.

So that's the wrap on the week. Ending off with a random selection of shot's from the week that was...

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The week that was....

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