Trekking the Wildside with Michal & co
Great to see the spirit of adventure isn't dead. Michal & co did a spontaneous trek from Seals to Oyster Bay on Friday arvo, camping overnight near Thyspunt. You know things are last minute when your sleeping kit consists of a boardbag! Check out their adventure here...
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Bruce's encounter with the dark side! Bruce getting shacked instead of smacked!
Local ripper Bruce Campbell had a really scary encounter with a psycho road-rager lunatic whilst competing in the bike section of a multi-sport race out in St Francis over the Easter weekend. Check out his scary story....
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The rules of surfing explained... Crowds = chaos. Know the rules of the surf...
Ok, so here we have it. Surfing etiquette explained. Now we just need to get the kooks, the clueless and the chops to learn the rules, and all will be well with the world! Some classic fails caught on camera!
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The inside skinny on tides
Tides are just about as important as swell and wind when it comes to scoring good surf. They can change spots from mush-burgers to pit madness in the space of their 6 hour cycle. Know how they work, and you'll increase your hit rate.
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Kodes & Kyle score a double
Water photag Kody McGregor teamed up with local ripper Kyle Jacobs to score this crazy barrel shot which cracked a double page spread in the Zag. Check out the story behind the shot here.
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ML scores a double pager in the Zag
Nice way to start the week. Craig Cuff calls saying "Lekker pic in the Zag ey!" Turns out my shot from Seals beachie last year that Josh Mc edited and sent in scored a double page spread. Rest of the shots from that epic day here.
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Downhill Dash - what's the story?
Got a skateboard? Then check the blog out. Find out more about the Downhill Dash at the Donkin, hook up with the Downhill Eastern Cape crew for your fix, and check out my shots of the ou's blazing the tarmac. Prepare to donate skin.
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PE surfer breaks his neck
Shew, the cyclone swell that hit Kwazulu-Natal turned out to be heavy in more ways than one. Local ballie Brent Sinclair was heading up the south coast on a holiday, and lucked into the big surf resulting from the cyclone. However, he's luck ran out when a huge set detonated on his head and he was pile-driven into the reef below - busting his neck - check out his hectic story here.
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The Zag on PE's flyboy - ET
Check out Clayton's catch-up with PE's flyboy Etienne Potgieter. Guess it must be that pilot's license that helps him get such hectic airtime. Boosts, barrels, whatever. This ou is one of PE's hottest surfers. Look n learn kids.
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Join CYOH!
Join CYOH - and be part of SA's best surf Club (as voted by Surfing South Africa). Click here to fill in the membership forms and to sort out your annual membership fee. This scores you a cool club T and stickers, as well as reduced entry fee's into all the CYOH comp's during the year.
Big things planned for CYOH in 2012, so be part of the happening! |
Art on the beach Paul's mobile art studio
Millerslocal caught up with surfer-artist Paul Munro at his mobile art studio parked at Denvils.
Check out Pauls story and some of his insane paintings here. Definitely worth pulling past if you in the area. |
Finally Jaryd backs the right team...
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Coastal Water Rescue Good to know these ou's have your back
Coastal Water Rescue are a volunteer organisation made up of a dedicated band of peeps that provide a much needed supplement to the municipal rescue services. I chatted to their rescue coordinater John Fletcher to find out more about what they do. Read more here...
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Understanding the Shark factor The REAL locals....
These ou's are a hot topic at the moment, with quite a few sighting recently. Check out the article I wrote for the latest issue of the Bomb surf mag all about the the apparent increase in sightings and attacks, specially the Great White.
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Faye hooks up with Mr P Faye ducking for cover
2012 is the year for Faye to become Faye-mous. She's just hooked up with a host of new sponno's including Mr P, and will be hitting the QS big time this year with some serious backing behind her. Check out her plans here.
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EAR WAAB - Listen up!
Check out these two local lighties that take CYOH's mantra seriously - and are creating their own happening. They're mixing up their own dub step under the EAR WAAB label. So go find out what their story is and give em a listen.
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Who are Sunset Surf Club?
Sunset Surf Club are hosting their annual Night Surfing Classic at Pipe this weekend. I didn't know much about the club, so decided to get in touch with their Chairman Addie to find out more. Turns out they're the oldest surf club in PE, starting out in 1988. Check out their story and some shots of their riders.
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Greg Smith's Mini-Smithy Greg ripping with the Mini-Smithy
To be honest the thing looks like an ironing board, but hang, it sure surfs a helluva lot better than one! Check out the story behind Greg Smiths weird new shape, and the shots of him ripping Millers walls to pieces on it.
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Dennis Ellis's Boardroom Bompie The ultimate summer board
What you get if you cross an Al Merrick Biscuit and a Firewire Sweet Potato? A Boardroom Bompie, that's what! And it rides much better than the other two! Check out the story behind the Bompie, and see it's curves up close!
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Yoga for surfers
You don't have to twist yourself into a koeksister to get the benefits of yoga. You'll surf better, breathe better and be stronger. Summer's the ideal time to get into some new routines in preparation for next winter, so check out this simple routine to keep you stretchy and pain-free.
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Longboarding on land! Ross Charnock, by Wessel Mostert
Summer flat spells doing your head in. Before you start sticking needles in your eyes, rather go grab yourself a longboard skateboard and get the land rush to fill the gaps in your glide and slide longing.
Millerslocal chats to Galed Smith, longboarder on both land and water, to get the low down. Plus some classic longboard skate vid's from around PE, by Ross Charnock. Including some epic bails and fails! Check em out.... |
Tracking Mr White Paddle lekker fast when you see this!
A Great White cruised past the beach at Hummies & Pipe yesterday. Ironically just last week Millerslocal chatted to PE shark researcher Matt Dickens about the ground-breaking Algoa Bay Great White Shark tagging project. Check it out here...
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Kody & Dono score cover of Zag!!!!!!
Frikkin' awesome work guys! Bout time PE surfers score a cover. We're all super proud of you boys for getting us on the map at last.
Time those Cape Town n Durb ou's pay some respects to the bay. We chat to Kody to find out the story behind the cover. Some flipping hard work went into getting this shot, but the effort reward ratio sure paid off in the end. Read more here..... |
Nasty lil critters Happy bluey. By Lillian Zeelie
Summers here, warm water, sun, lekker weather, holidays...and the chance of getting the sh*te stung outta ya by some nasty lil floating critters.
So what you should do if one of these sneaking punks latches onto you? I've put together some practical advice here, and it doesn't entail your mate pissing on you either! |
Surf coach to the (future) stars The kinda coach you listen to!
Wanna punch above your weight...wanna surf like a demon? Then this is your man. Shannon Ainslie is just the man to fill Hynsie's shoes. Focused, professional, and will make you surf like a champ. Find out what makes him tick.
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Who is Canvas Opera?
PE's latest surf band, that's who. We're calling em a surf band cos they all surf, so it seemed like the right thing to do! Find out more about who they are and what they play here.
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John's barrel in print 1x stoked John
Millerslocal decided to surprise John with a big-ass poster of Luc's shot of him on a Hummies smoker. Barry Heasley from DPi printed up a killer poster. So c'mon ou's nothing beats a lekker big print of yourself ripping, you can sit and stare at it all day long! Buy your high res shots from the photags, and get Barry at DPi to blow you up beeeeeg!
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So are we the Windy City? We like a bit of texture on our waves!
Yrrrr, over this wind. The joys of being a PE surfer mean accepting that most of the good swell that rolls into the bay will be obliterated by hectic wind, generally a straight west. So, do we deserve out title as the Windy City? Let's find out.
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Big Dave has a Big heart Some stoked lighties
Props to Big Dave & Lil Helen (Surf Centre & Shoe Fetish). They donated a huge box of shoes and bags of clothes to the stoked lighties at the EP Children's Home. Awesome to know that peeps can still care about others, & man, these kids were stoked!
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Jakes gets CYOH ink Putting ya money were your mouth is
Jakes showed how committed he is to the cause - and went and got Create Your Own Happening inked onto his flank! That stands for CYOH by the way - which is PE's local surf club. And for all those thinking he's got the ink on backwards - he took the shot in the mirror!
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Millers from the air Home sweet home
Craig Cuff had a cool photag assignment recently that saw him cruising about in a chopper. Lucky for us he convinced the pilot to pull past Millers for a coupla shots. Nice one Craig! Check out our home break from the skies.
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The Luc Hosten Profile Jono snapped Luc at the CYOH comp
We finally track down the man behind the beard, and behind some of PE's most iconic surf photo's. Check out a selection of his favourite shots, as well some of his funny stories, advice to aspiring photags, and this & that & the next thing.
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Digging deeper into spot names Gary gave us some Fence history
Found out a lil more behind our spot names with baalies Marc Reid & Gary Cooper sharing a few stories, as well as bay historian Jennie Bennie giving us the low down on how Pollok and Shark Rock got their names. Read more....
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How PE surf spots got their names Ever wondered why it's called Baked Beans?
OK, so Pipe & Clubhouse are no-brainers, but ever wondered how Baked Beans, Fence, Avo's and Chomp Rock got their names? We tracked down some baalies to trace the origin behind the names of the bay's surf spots, so check it out...
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Bruce's signs up with O'Neill
 Showing off the sponno's sticker
Industry news is that Bruce Campbell has recently signed up with O'Neill. So he's surfing psycho cos he's wearing Psycho! We caught up with Bruce to get the low down on the new deal. Check it out here.
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Successful CYOH Blanket Run
CYOH had a really successful Blanket Run on Sunday. The ou's parked off at Pipe collecting blankets for those less fortunate than ourselves, and ended up with a big haul of 110 blankies. Well done to CYOH and Jakes for organising such a cool community project, and to all the peeps that popped down to drop off their blankets. Good on ya all.
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R-evolve - PE's homegrown surf brand
Wayne Barnes is an ou not scared to live his dreams. He's launched PE's very own subculture surf/skate brand. Check out his story and the cool threads they have, then scoot down to their shop in Newton Park and grab yourself some limited edition threads.
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Old Surf mag - 1967 Buy at Seals for R900!
Leo Davis sent us some images from an old 1967 surf mag, SA Surfer, he found at home. Classic stuff about PE's original surf club, the Commodores. Plus results from the '67 SA Surfing Titles - where Mush Hide was still a junior! Geesh, imagine how frothed out he was as a grom, cos he's still so amped as a baalie! Check it out here....
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Getting our beaches back! Shot of the Noordhoek dunes
Here Millerslocal takes an in-depth look at how reactivating the Noordhoek dunes could bring some much needed sand back into the back onto the town beaches. Some classic old pics showing how the dunes used to run right across Cape Recife back in the day. Read all about it here.
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Kody & ET score Zag double pg spread Double page spread on the prime contents page
Nice one guys! Keep the PE flag flying, show the CT&DBN ou's we do get good waves & have the hot surfers to ride them. Go buy the latest copy of the Zag to check out the shot in full technicolour glory! In the meantime, you can just double click the pic.
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Humewood surfing rules-READ THIS! You wanna still surf this - then play by the rules
There's some important facts everyone needs to know about when you can and can't surf Hummies, cos if we stuff this up as a surfing community we're going to get banned from there for good, so read more here...
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Wanna know why the water's so cold? No-one told Wes that it was 14C!
Anyone who got in the water yesterday morning will tell you it wasn't lekker. Serious ice-cream headache stuff. Or for Wes here, make it ice-cream body-ache. Check out the blog to find out more about why we've freezing in the middle of summer...
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Know your Air's Owen with a perfect mute grab
Anyone know how the hang to tell the difference between a mute, a lien and a slob? Thought not. Stab mag took Bruce & Julian and did tow-at's in a wavepool, and then snapped the shots showing all the different grabs. Check em out here.
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Cooking Hummies back in the day! Smoking waves @ at Hummies
Nooit! This just landed on my desk. Double click this pic! Cooking waves at Hummies, & lines peeling off at Millers, & not a surfer in sight. Probably wasn't even one in PE! My kingdom for a time machine. Check the Back in the Day gallery for more.
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New sandbags going up at Pipe Dragging the sandbag builder into place
In a follow up to the grading of the dunes earlier in the week, turns out they're going to build a wall of sandbags along the front of the Pipe boardwalk (bout hip high). Trying to keep the sand in place. We'll see. Sand and sea have their own agenda.
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PE's disappearing beaches Going, going, gone...?
You must be helluva unobservant not to see that our sand's gone AWOL. Hummies, Pier & Avo's all stopped working consistently about 3 years back cos of it. We quizzed local surfer & Environmental scientist, Dylan Anderson, to find out what's going on, and if things are going to improve.
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Saving the sand at Pipe Don't mess with this dude!
A big grader was flattening the dunes at Pipe, so I went and accosted an official looking gentleman to find out what this was all about. Turns out they're trying to save our sand, which is definitely not a bad thing. Read the whole story here, and check some more pics.
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Warri stands up! Two feet instead of a foot and a knee
Eish, you know the surf's kinda lame when PE's bodyboard king ditches the fins and decides to stand-up! Warri got bust standing up at Pipe on the weekend, so we tracked him down. Check out the pics & his story here.
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Whassup with the weird water colour?
Looked like the milk truck had dumped it's load in the sea this morning. A strange milky coloured area of water started up at Pipe and began spreading down towards Avo's, by late arvie it was right past Millers. Perfect deliniation between cloudy water inshore - and crystal clear water about 100m offshore. So what gives? I dropped a mail to local surfer Dylan Anderson, who's a Coastal and Environmental Scientist working at Afri-Coast. He gives us the low-down:
The discoloured water off Pollok and Avalanche this morning is most likely a sediment plume and not pollution related. Due to the orientation of the coast south of Beacon Rock (the big rock at Avo’s) i.e. the Pipe and Pollok areas, the waves often approach at a very direct angle and therefore set-up circulation and currents that take the fine sediment stirred up in the surf zone offshore.
At Avalanche and Millers the waves approach at a more oblique angle (making the nice peeling wave for surfing) and setting up strong longshore currents which sweep the sediment along in the surf zone. When Clubhouse breaks it sets up a strong wave driven current which flows down the Clubhouse reef and across the front of Bird rock.
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So there you have it - waves hit Pipe straight on, rumbling up the seafloor so that there's plenty sand suspended in the water. Then the resultant current carries this sandy (hence cloudy) water along past Avo's and on to Millers - cos that's the way the longshore drift runs (ie the normal current flowing along this part of the Bay). Thanks Dylan! We'll be interviewing Dylan soon to find out more about the erosion issues facing PE beaches. Watch this space.
John Scheepers showing that time in the car park pays off!
After ribbing John about all the time he spends hanging around the car park instead of getting in the water in a recent Locals feature, he got his revenge this last weekend. The surf wasn't up to much on Saturday morning, so John was just checking things out from the deck at Pipe when this blonde in a Ferrari pulled up into the car park. John, not having lost any of his charm, promptly wandered over and asked if he could have a look at the car. The chick then chucked the keys over to him and asked him if he wanted to take it for a drive. Being the sensible guy he is he realised the insurance implications of pranging a R3 million buck car, so declined. Not to be deterred the blonde offered to take him for a spin. John reckons they were already doing 200k's by the time they went past the Admirality Drive turnoff. A ridiculously quick ride around Marine Drive followed, he reckons the g's in this thing are mind-blowing. He did unfortunately drop the ball at 99 when he failed to get her phone number - but hey, we'll forgive him - getting taken for a drive in a Ferrari probably does blow your mind a bit!!
John trying not to grin like a kid in a candy store. Image by Lorna.
