The week that was… – Featured Blog

A decidedly slow week surf-wise. Very much a scratch and grovel affair with no groundswell gracing the coast. These was the odd wave window, but pretty much Pipe or bust in the bay. The waves might let us down, but the dolphins never do. Cruising past every day like clockwork.

Now’s the time to give our finned friends a hand. The Addo Marine Protected Area (MPA) has been proposed, and we all need to lend our support to it so that it gets approved. It’s a chunk of the bay, including the islands, from Motherwell across to Cannon Rocks, a vital breeding area for our penguins, as well as home to huge pods of dolphins and breeding whales. 

You can make a difference by heading over to the blog post I did explaining the importance of the MPA, and download the letter of support and email it to the govt peeps. More the merrier when it comes to the number of emails they get from peeps saying, yah – we want that thing!

Stoked to have been given the opportunity by Zag to get PE some mag-time. Our lil town tends to get ignored most of the time, so lekker to be able to show the rest of the Saffa surfing community that we actually do get some surf, and we have such a kiff surf community. Go grab the latest copy of Zigzag to check it out. Some kiff pics from Kody McGregor. 
#LocalisLekker.

Not only does Car Park John gets his pic in the new Zag and a mention in the PE feature, he’s also getting interviewed by NMMU journalism students. What’s next – a clothing line, a surfboard label? The skies the limit.

Ex-local Ryan McSkimming is back in the bay for a visit. Lucky ou is living the dream in West Africa with a cooking left point as his front garden. Guessing he’s staring out at Pipe going, yss, glad I moved! But hey, once a PE peep, always a PE peep. Never gets outta ya blood.

Whilst busy researching for a PE Surf History article I’m doing came across this shot of Peter Gilchrist taken by Jonty Hansford at Seals. Noticed how he had his leash on the front foot. So was he switch-stancing? Nup, turns out Pete marched to the beat of his own drum, and just dug to have his strap on the front foot.

Whilst in time-machine mode, came across this ad for plots at Seals back in 1967. For only R900 buckaroo’s you would be the owner of a possie at Cape St Francis, with princely monthly repayments of R13 bucks. Hind sight is an exact science, isn’t it.

Make a plan to go give Dane Staple’s new FB page a like – head over to Dane Staples Films here ​https://www.facebook.com/danestaplesfilms/ so that you can stay up to date with all the fresh edits dropping from this super talented St Francis surfer. He’s just finished a short film with Jordy Smith, about his pre-season prep for the WSL 2016 – the big man is looking sharp as a razor. Here’s hoping early form translates into some tour wins this year!

The 2016 WSL is about to kick off – Join Billabong’s Fantasy Surfer Club “Billabong SA” The overall winner walks away with a R10 000 shopping voucher as well as prizes for every event.

To enter, log onto fantasy.surfermag.com, choose your teams and join the club “Billabong SA”. Open to SA residents only. Prizes will be awarded to both Men’s and Women’s team winners, plus prizes for each comp.

The Billabong Grom Games are coming up soon, and organisers are asking for anyone who’s keen to sponsor an ad in the brochure to give em a yell. Check out the info below, then give Shirley a holler if you can help.

Caught up with PE’s salt-water chef, Allan Bezuidenhout, during the week, He’s a Millers local and owner of the newest spot on Stanley Street, Muse. Not only does he make his own Hobie Beach salt, but one of his dishes is this “edible reef” – after being inspired whilst surfing Millers one day (edible sand, with dried out prawn shells, oysters in shell for the rocky bit, deep fried nori seaweed and crayfish tail). Stoked PE finally gets some fine dining – and it’s a surfer who’s doing it. You can check out the interview here (and see some of Allan’s amazing looking chow)
http://www.millerslocal.co.za/millerslocals-blog/salt-water-chef

Collect shells from places we visit and have some nice big ‘un’s from Maldives and Indo, which we bought from the local community. Decided it might be cool to try turn a couple into lamps. Came across Peazy Projects on FB as spotted the shaka they had as their profile pic on my newsfeed so went to look up their page. They seemed to do all sorts of design and engineering stuff so got in touch and they were keen to make it happen. The shell lamps turned out great, super stoked. For any design/engineering projects from furniture through to treehouses, contact these guys, cos local is lekker!
https://www.facebook.com/PEazyprojects/ or Brendon on Peazyprojects@gmail.com

Saw a classic vintage shot of PE this week – of where all the boats used to anchor off North End. Imagine the amazing beachies that stretch of coast used to dish up before it disappeared after the construction of the harbour. If the swells are big enough to beach a few ships, they sure would be good enough to surf.

Round 2 at Snapper saw the underdogs klapping the main ou’s. Jordy out to Ryan Callinan, Kelly out to Stuart Kennedy, Julian out to Seabass, Kai out to Conner. Not quite the start to the year the big guns were looking for. Ironically, Stu Kennedy, an underground Aussie pointbreak specialist (and injury replacement for Bede Durbidge), beat Kelly Slater on one of his own boards – a Daniel Thomson-shaped, Slater Designs ‘Sci-Phi’ Firewire. In doing so he resigned the King to his worst result at the Quiksilver Pro since 1992.

Jordy looked suitably mortified after his loss. He’s going to have to pull something outta the bag if O’Neill’s going to resign him when his contract ends in 2018. The WSL site lists his career wins total as over $ 1.3 million to date, so he could probably live off that the rest of his life anyhows. But flip, just wish things would finally click for him. Such an insane surfer who just can’t seem to get it together. World champ material no doubt.

Things are looking promising for a bit of a wave later in the week and into the weekend. Hopefully the swell gods cut us a break! Roll on winter – although hopefully El Nino has died by then – as it didn’t do us any favours last winter.