The week that was...

© Robbie Irlam

The long weekend delivered some waves, even the bay had a few fun one's. Still lots of really good surfers hanging out in JBay since the Open. Plenty guys pulled back in for the swell. Including a coupla famous one's. They guys at Surf Centre were pretty surprised when Jordy pitched up at the shop and needed a board and some goodies. He had a rather well known ou in tow too! One of the best surfers out there, pity he isn't on tour anymore.

© Surf Centre

Not often one can score a decent dawnie in winter in PE. The nature of how we're situated in the bay means the morning costal offshore is actually a really horrid onshore for the town breaks. But sometimes the early birds do get the worm. Like Allan scoring a kiff sesh during the week. Even luckier when someone on hand to take the shot.

Allan Bezuidenhout getting an early © Dave Randle

Plenty of ships cruising past our shores these days "thanks" to the Coega harbour. Wonder how many containers get washed off these things in the big swells? Specially when you see how it ploughs into the waves. 

© Luc Hosten

Weird looking ship spotted in PE harbour during the week. Turns out it's a submersible freight loader' The whole ship sinks down and the cargo is then pulled onto the deck. The ballast tanks are then emptied and the ship rises out of the water with the cargo then on the deck. Pretty clever. This one is taking stuff to the Total Ethane Cracker Project in Texas. There's also a drilling rig anchored near Coega at the moment. Wonder if they'd find anything if they dropped their drill!? 

Do remember a while back there was a survey ship doing seismic surveys along the coast for oil prospecting. Hopefully they found zippo. Fish farms are bad enough without having to contend with oil rigs drilling for oil!

© Haley Killian

The recent dearth of swell (until the drought was broken over the weekend) has seem lots of guys heading round the corner for their fix. Some spots that normally only have a handful of guys out are now seeing up to 20-30 guys in the line-up. Desperate times call for desperate measures (which in PE terms means a "long" drive past Cape Recife.)

© Luic Hosten

Surf watches are neat. Tell you how far you've paddled and how many waves you've caught. Not too sure about their accuracy when it comes to measurements tho', take the below for example. 4 waves and 1.5k's paddled, something doesn't quite stack up! One thing they do prove tho' is that the right at Pipe should actually be called a "straight" Thanks to Greg Heasley for pointing that one out!

Greg didn't need a watch to tell him he'd caught a blerrie long wave - saw him hook one from Millers all the way down to Hobie Beach. Doesn't happen too often. Greg must have fitted in about 50 turns on that wave!

Dave Morgan sent me this shot from his archives. A big day out at Bell Bouy. As Richard von Wildeman commented on the post - the Buoy 5 meters tall (the lil bit sticking out the top of the shoulder), and the base of the wave is not visible. Richards been out there on a windless day and says it lets you in kinda easy but then bowls up really fast. 

I remember Jason van Greunen telling me the story about how he paddled out there to surf from the beach at Pipe on a massive day. Dennis Ellis quipped that his boet was with Jason that day and half way out the NRSI boat came up to them to see if they were OK and had drifted out to sea! Which would be a fairly valid assumption spotting to ou's on surfboards in the middle of the ocean on a heaving day.

© Dave Morgan

Another landmark always featuring in pics of PE is the pier, and it's neat to see a shot from a slightly different angle. You can check out some old Hobie Beach and Pier history here:
http://www.millerslocal.co.za/blog/the-history-of-hobie-beach
http://www.millerslocal.co.za/blog/the-dr-muesli-pier

@jacohorak

A cool vintage shot of the beachfront popped up this week. It's taken from just off Hobie Beach across the grass area towards 1st/2nd avenue Summerstrand. The tall building is Grosvenor Court (corner of 3rd avenue - opposite Millers). The building on the far right is the old Hollywood Hotel. It was a surfer hangout back in the day.

Forecast looks like there'll be the chance of a wave before the week's out. So get those suits dry. Thankfully water temps have sky-rocketed, and you can easily do a 2mm if you want.

© Luc Hosten