The week that was...

Justin van Niekerk © Petronel Posthumus

Slow week waves wise, coupla lumps popping up over the weekend just to keep everyone sane. Main news of the week was the NMBS lighties who won the Sea Harvest Grom Games Surfing Trophy at Pipe over the weekend. Well done lighties!!

Victorious NMBS aka EP © Petronel Posthumus

Was mostly flat during the first part of the week - which meant beach time, snorkel time, pretty much anything other than water time!

© Marcus Ducker

If the bay's flat, no problem, just put a coupla bucks in the tanks and head over to the wildside - sometimes it entails a trip right to the end of the road. But it has to be really small for Maitlands not to have something surfable. You do of course sometimes hear the faint sound of Jaws theme music when you're sitting out there though!

Maitlands sunset © Wiehahn Coetzer‎

Speaking of finned friends....a Cape Town lightie didn't realize how close he was to one. Craig Drysdale's son was out surfing Kalk Bay and his mate snapped a few shots. When reviewing the pics they noticed a large great white about 1.5 m away from him!! Lightie is duckdiving the wave next to the peak, and Mr Grey Suit - well - he's easy to see!!

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As usual the spots further west delivered some fun one's when the swell did finally show up. JBay and Seals had a wave or two. 

© Cyle Myers

If you had more than just a few bob for a tank of fuel - and could afford to spring for an air ticket - well, you could have hooked some cooking waves with ex-Seals locals Brad & Hannah. They are "working" out in Indo at the moment - at a spot famously known as Occy's Left.

Despite the lack of swell - the windless days meant you could take a nice walk out at Cape Recife without getting sandblasted to pieces! We do actually need the wind to blow though - so it moves the sand off the dune field and over into the bay - as that's where all our feeder sand comes from. Most of the bays beaches are super stony at the moment - so some more sand wouldn't go amiss. 

© Heather Nel

More skelm issues during the week. Guy's went for a  swim at Pipe and buried their keys on the beach under a rock & put their towel on top of it. Came back - looked for key - gone. Wayne Barnes went over to see what was up and started to help em look. They gave up, and when Wayne walked back up onto the boardwalk a guy asked him what they were doing. When he explained, the guy then said he'd seen a dodgy dude scratching around there and described him.

Wayne and the key owner jumped in Wayne's car and headed down to Millers to see if they could spot the skelm based on the description they'd received. They did find him near Something Good. Flagged down a police van and asked them to search the guy - but he had nothing on him. Skunked.

Elvis the car guard was made aware to keep an eye out for dodgies. So the very next day he sees them sitting on the dunes at Pipe (not the brightest bunch, our thieves, maybe in the hope the car was still there). Elvis enlisted  CarPark John to go with him to confront them. They got the keys back. So good job by all. The surf community needs to watch out for each other. Thanks to Wayne, John and Elvis. 

© Andrew Garai

For those of you allergic to early mornings - your chances of seeing the sunrise are steadily improving as winter approaches and the sun wakes up a bit later.

© Colin Hilder

Nothing like an aerial shot to provide good evidence that the pier at Hobie is doing it's job of trapping sand. The concrete cross struts between the pylon bases are actually removable - so if the council ever wanted to do us the biggest favour they'd lift em out for a coupla days so all the sand from Hobie could wash through onto the north side of the pier - and we could get some waves there again!

© Meg Heine

As you can see from this old pic there wasn't much sand on Hobie in the days before the Pier was built. Apparently this shot is taken between 1969 - 1970. Clues were the detour on the Humewood bridge - so just after the '68 floods, UPE site had been cleared but no construction taking place yet. Still there are the tennis courts and the caravan park.

You'll see from the shot above that the pylons at Humewood used to have steel girders on them - this was to guide the ships up onto the slipway. Back in the day there had been talk to build a restaurant on top of the pylons - but anyone whose seen Hummies on a solid day knows that would be a kak idea!

© Marlo Luiters

Easters coming up and usually it delivers some decent surf - but the charts aren't showing any hint of that yet. Here's hoping that we get a nice surprise!!

© Dian Coetzee