Hello everyone, and especially the SurfHive Community! It's Jasper, the musical-surfer dad from Cape Town in South Africa. It's a long weekend of public holidays here in South Africa, and that means I have managed to join some friends on holiday about 90 minutes outside of Cape Town.
Our friends have a holiday house in a small town where the summer SE wind is offshore. The really cool thing is that the very next town 5 minutes away faces the opposite direction, where the winter NW wind is offshore!
We arrived on Thursday with some of the first winter rains falling hard!
As evening came and the rains began to clear... I had to think quick. My friend Spike would be joining me for a surf session the following day, but he'd probably want to surf the main beach where I've been before.
For those of you who don't follow me, I have made a New Year's Resolution to surf or bodyboard a new spot at least once a month. I have managed to do this in January, February (just in time!) and March, but April was nearly over, and for various reasons (flu, a music gig, work, etc) I hadn't managed to surf much at all in April so far.
So with an hour of sunlight left I got in the car and drove to the "winter is offshore" town and checked some rocky places... but no luck. I picked a road that would get me close to what was clearly the "other" beach (besides the main one I mentioned) on Google Earth. I couldn't see a path to get to the beach until a surfer suddenly appeared out of the bushes. I suited up and ran on the path through the dunes with 20 minutes of sunlight left!
I found a wave fighting against a rip, and still a bit chopped up by the storm from earlier in the day...
But I paddled out quickly...
... And this was April's #newwave! My New Year's Resolution lasts into May!
I managed to get around this section...
... and actually kept going for a while!
The following morning I met Spike at the main beach... The main beach is famous for shorebreak barrels... I decided to try and bodyboard first!
The sea had cleaned up a lot overnight, Spike turns...
And drops down...
Bodyboarding gave me the chance to show you a view I haven't got to show you too often yet... when a wave goes from deep to shallow very rapidly, it can cause the wave to break in a hollow fashion. One of the most exciting things to do as a surfer or bodyboarder is to ride inside this "barrel" or "tube"!
I also decided to try stand-up surfing, but play it safe in the shallow conditions with my faithful soft-top, which meant I got to practice taking off and standing up as fast as possible!
The wind should get very soft tomorrow morning, before switching to summer winds... so hopefully I can explore the "summer-wind" town while we are still here! Wish me luck, and have a great weekend where you are!
THE END