Table of contents for July 2016 (40.5) in Zigzag

It was a peach of a morning. The bluff’s sub-tropical green landscape was still dripping wet from the heavy rains the night before, and the seascape was serene and crystal clear. Sitting on my board – exhausted from the short paddle out, I watched a seagull drop into the trough of a clean swell and glide across the face – riding the offshore. As I followed its graceful ride until it kicked-out to avoid the pitching lip, I felt that familiar feeling – the one only a surfer knows; that feeling of all your worries and pressures rinsing off your back, while you’re at backline. It had been two months since my last session and I knew that all I needed to get my mind back into stoked balance following…

If you’ve paddled a fair few laps around the ol’ surfing block, you’ll have heard some horror injury stories or been an unfortunate casualty yourself. And don’t let the old saying ‘it’s only water’ fool you, because we ride fibreglass spears and there’s often something similarly hard and sharp lying just below the surface. While injuries are often unavoidable short of staying out of the water or holding back from going big – as was the case for Adin Masencamp recently, who had his throat sliced deeply by his fin during a botched air – what follows are some tips to consider the next time you paddle out. They might just help you avoid some bloody mishaps. TAKE COVER This one is basic but you’ll often witness others in the…

It felt like the waves didn’t drop below 20 foot for a week! It was a crazy start to winter, with a solid run of big waves. It was not all perfect, but we were stoked. For Jacques Theron and myself it all started off on the Saturday, as we paddled out early to Dungeons – which was in its typical big and bumpy with the odd bomb inbetween mood. Most of the guys who ride out there regularly had gone up to Namibia, so there were not that many of the usual suspects in the water. There were a few new faces though, and one or two guys caught some good waves that left an impression. Monday came with the promise of another fast-building swell, so I spent most…

What a crazy day of surfing! There is a lot of hype when you see big, colourful blobs on the forecast these days, and sometimes you wish you could clone yourself so as not to miss any of the action. J-Bay and Namibia are often in mind on swells like these, but one spot not far from home that always excites me drew me in that week. Chasing this swell felt great because a few of my good friends had the same plan in mind – the mental pictures of them in the hefty barrels always make for some genuine celebrating afterwards. Unknown to me, the swell was really big and powerful as the day broke. I rocked up and briefly saw a ‘normal/mellow’ set, before I ran back to…

Will the real Beyrick de Vries please stand up! Indeed, the 23-year-old Durbanite just came off a bit of a streak at the two QS1000 events in Cape Town, finishing third at the Cape Town Pro and taking out the win at the Vans Surf Pro Classic. For context though, this came in May, five months into the year and those were his first two contests for 2016. Reason: The man who finished 2015 as the highest ranked South African on the QS has decided to take something of a sabbatical. A gap year if you will, to figure out who he is and just where he wants to take his surfing. Or, where he wants surfing to take him. “I decided I needed to prioritise surfing instead of competitive…

From being one of South Africa’s top Juniors, Craig Johnson made the natural transition to become every grom’s most coveted coach. With his smiley, happy-go-lucky demeanour, Craig epitomizes your everyday working class hero. He is a blue collar operator focussed on bringing forth talent in up-and-coming groms, uplifting kids in impoverished communities, as well as helping the older generation acquire the skills they need to surf waves beyond Muizenberg. An influential individual, he encourages his community to strive towards a better life. He embodies the idea that says, ‘hey, let’s not sit around doing nothing getting up to nonsense, let’s rather go surf.’ Craig started surfing at Nine Miles in Strandfontein after his dad bought him his first surfboard – a purple Lazy B. And that is where it all…

THE MYSTERY OF SURFING Isn’t it funny that we go to the same place every day to do the same thing, to surf the same waves? Isn’t it funny that it feels different every time we go out there? Even though we failed badly today or the waves were horrible, we’ll come back tomorrow for certain and do the same thing again. Why? Surfing isn’t just our passion or a sport we do, it is our lifestyle and medicine if something goes wrong in life. The sea sets us free and makes us think about all the good things in life every single day. Surfing gives us a purpose in life and makes us chase that one perfect wave. That’s exactly what the mystery of surfing is about. Nick Blecher,…

Ever inadvertently slukked some seawater during your surf and wondered what you might be swallowing? Turns out there are plenty of little critters enjoying the slippery slope down your oesophagus. National Geographic published the image above entitled “Marine Microfauna” in 2006, taken by David Liittschwager, who has been working with researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Hawaii. The photo shows a highly magnified view of a scoop of seawater, with David describing its supertiny contents as “a genuine riot of life.” The planktonic soup includes bug-like copepods; long, glassy arrowworms; coiled filaments of cyanobacteria; rectangular algae called diatoms; fish eggs; and a bigeyed larval crab the size of a rice grain. Plankton is the catch-all term given to any organism in the ocean that is unable to…

This swell was on everyone’s radar for a while, with every different web forecast reading the swell the same. Normally everyone gets excited seven days before the swell is expected, and then two days before its scheduled arrival the swell drops and everyone’s hopes are dashed. But not this one. For once this swell kept growing as it drew near. Personally, I never know what to do when a monster swell arrives. I knew that just about everyone with a GoPro was heading up north to Namibia and I wasn’t really amped to mission, so I decided to stay home and find some different nooks and crannies to explore. The swell arrived late evening on Sunday 24th April, peaking at something like 8.2 metres @ 17 seconds. I woke early…

It’s like the change of the tide – one morning you will wake up and the air will have a slight chill to it and the northwest landbreeze is puffing. That’s when you know winter is on its way to East London and it gets everyone frothing – which makes it hard to concentrate on anything other than surfing. This also usually means that work production slows down quite a bit at this time of the year. East London is a beautiful place to be in winter. It gets cold but not as cold as J-Bay, while at the same time it’s not as warm as Durban – it’s almost like a happy medium. During winter our waves are groomed by the landbreeze and we get more straight west winds,…

Standing on the rain-soaked tarmac on the hill overlooking the farming village, I felt bemused. This was as far from anything surf-related than I could have imagined. No, Napier isn’t like any surf town you’ve ever seen or heard of. In fact it’s not even near the coast. The closest thing to waveriding here would be to drop down this beautifully smooth road toward the church on a skateboard. That would be epic actually! But that’s not why I am here, no. I’m here to meet the first professional female shaper I’ve ever heard of in Africa, one of the few in the world to my knowledge, Jennifer Bam. I drove out with the man responsible for setting this all in motion, the front-man behind the Wawa surf label and…

It’s 5:00am in mid September, it may as well be midnight it’s so black. I find myself in a deserted parking lot, waiting. I didn’t sleep last night, my stomach is in a knot, the car door that doesn’t close properly is leaking ice-cold rain water and the wind is clawing at the cracks, whistling – it’s near gale force. Why am I here? Two others arrive in the secluded lot, victims like me – users. We sit there in the dark, staring, waiting, who will make the first move It’s me, it has to be! I left my half naked girl in a warm bed at 4:00am to make sure I was first in the queue. The irrational decisions started long before today – skipping work, buying air tickets…

We all look forward to winter. Not so much for the cold and the rain, even though the country needs it more than ever, but for the seasonal promise of the waves that the big winter storms will produce. And not just any waves, we look forward to those long-range, well-groomed swells that start in the far east corner of the South Pacific and get supercharged as they funnel through the Drake Passage, before marching across the Atlantic toward southern Africa and creating some serious motion in the ocean. You can watch these mighty low pressure systems a good week or more out on your favourite surf forecasting platform – the animated maps showcasing it best. It’s these systems that bring special spots like Dungeons, J-Bay and Skeleton Bay alive.…

Another winter has come upon us and it has started with a bang! We have been unfortunate down this side of the world, as have most east coasters, thanks to a miserable winter last year. But this April we had a good cold front, which threw down a much appreciated blanket of snow on the high ground. This coupled with warm water equals good offshore wind. Thankfully, the evil southeast swells that our fellow city surfers love so much stayed clear in the later cyclone season and spared the sand on the points. So far, so good! Due to a slack winter last season, we have a serious crew of wavestarved locals down here right now, plus a young artillery of groms who have come of age all staking their…

So I’m back in the 031 after four months in the 021, a month in the 042, three nights in the 043, six hours in the 047, eighteen minutes in the 039 and a night in the Scottburgh police cells. It’s good to be back in Westbrook, not least because a red-hot chili has appeared on the back bumper of my car. Not a real one, you idiot. It’s a sticker. Nobody gets a chili without a nod from JJ, the don of the Brook. To get a chili, you have to be good, you have to show respect and you have to be a local. Two chilis is next level. I don’t even know what you have to do to get two chilis, but I’m pretty sure there are…