The Bay

There is a place on the Garden Route that I have made more surf missions to than anywhere else on the South African map. This place is a small town and the inhabitants are all "boere" meaning they lack the skill to communicate in English which, make the people of this town rather hilarious. The town was discovered by Vasco Da Gama at the dawn of time and is famous for having gas. I have come to call this place "My home from homes" because, as korky as this town is, I LOVE MOSSEL BAY!!!!

Once you get used to the town it grows on you. The people are super friendly and have become some of my best friends, over the years that we have shared together. Partying in this town is a mash up of brandy and cola that causes one to lose all dignity in a matter of hours. I developed a gambling problem in the Bay because everyone else has one. For breakfast you eat steak, for lunch you eat steak and for dinner you eat steak! Everyone knows everyone and life is good. Oh and did I mention the waves are amazing?

The following images in this post were taken by an amateur photgrapher who was quite possibly inebriated while performing the art of taking photos, but instead of denouncing him lets just say that hes a VERY contemporary artist known as Peppi Venter (he has Facebook ;) )

In this rather blurry image is Johan Nortjie, a local in the bay, steering a clean forward air into completion at bottom section.

This Image is the result of a slow shutter speed- Johan Nortjie in a happy place

A wave that I find so much fun for Drop Knee is Inner pool located next to its bigger brother Outer pool.

Getting under the lip at Inner Pool- Matt Webster

An lonely wave passes by at Outer Pool

Vlooi Botha has some style, especially when he gets vertical!

Going for glory, Vlooi Botha enters a whole in a wave

A Weekend Full of it

The weekend took a harsh toll on me. I am sitting in front of my laptop trying to be creative and, at the same time, trying not to face plant it out of shear exhaustion. You see, this past weekend was spent in a town, 4 hours from the Mother City, doing nothing more than bodyboarding. Now that I think about it, the long distance drive, the lack of sleep, the random sunburn and the festering red eyes was all worth the time at the Southern Cape Bodyboarding Champs in Mossel Bay. No regrets!

The contest was held at Mossel Bays most notable wave, Outerpool. Outerpool is a right hand reef break that produces some amazing waves when the winds are blowing in a South Westerly direction, the tide is low and the swell is a South Easterly swell in the range of 2.5m to 3m. These are roughly the conditions we got during the contest which made for a spectacle of big moves.

The riders that stood out in the contest consisted of a group of locals such as Adam Morley who made got one of the highest heat scores of the event, Bjorn Coetzee who clenched biggest move of the contest with an insane backflip he boosted and Johan Nortjie who won the mens division respectively.One kid that set the bar for the standard of riding was, super grom, Tristan Roberts who performed so well in the contest that he ended up taking titles in 2 divisions being the boys division, because he is young enough to compete in this event, and the Pro division because he is just that super! The junior division was won by Plett local, Niklas Martin, ladies was taken by Nikki Gerrike, who is also from Plett, and the dropknee division was won by Matt Webster.

The contest that Southern Cape Bodyboarding Association hosted was a truly good comeback since they left the South African Bodyboarding scene in 2007. Many thanks go out to the organizers and the sponsors and especially to all the buddies that made the long drive to Mossel Bay for the epic time we had!

The next provincial championship will be the weekend of the 1st and 2nd September where Boland will have its chance at hosting an insane comp. For more information go to the Boland  website

Now for some eye candy from SCBA Champs...Feast!

The face of the Boy that took Pros, Tristan Roberts

Deep in the pocket- Douw Steyn chooses to seek the tube

Tristan Roberts demonstrates his mechanical flips

Doing something behind a mighty bush- Mafoos Lombard

Outerpool local, Joe Boogie, going crazy on a section in the Drop knee semi-finals

A free surf at Innerpool caused Mafoos Lombard to get vertical.

Juniors winner, Niklas Martin, boosting a clean roll in his semi-finals

The reason why he won pros is because of massive moves like this flip- Tristan Roberts

Boost of the contest winner, Bjorn Coetzee with this massive Back Flip