I had the most amazing paddle this morning. My usual suspect, Alexis Lyon, is away in the Kruger Park, so I had to drag my own sorry butt around the Plett Bay. The water was freezing, very unlike Plett, so I made sure I didn’t get wet going out through the shorebreak!

Although it was raining, there was a warm breeze blowing, and with all the swell in the Bay, there were awesome runs coming off the Robberg Penninsular. When I say “runs” I mean rebounding swell coming off the rock cliff. Some were as big as 3 foot, and broke like waves. Great fun, even the seals were catching them.

I always love seeing the seals there, because then, in my mind, their main predator is not around, otherwise they would be sitting n the rocks out of harm’s way

I am off to Spain on Tuesday, but first I have to do loads of admin (amazing how it piles up when you need to leave the country), fetch a rental car from George (My Renault’s windscreen wipers have broken, leaving the car useless in this weather we are experiencing, and I am currently waiting for the part to arrive from France!), pack, and fit in another training session… Crazy times. I have come to accept that I am a procrastinator, and I obviously need the pressure of last minute chores to achieve travelling success…

The EuroChallenge is going to be awesome. Looks like there is going to be great down wind, and I have never been to Spain, so a first time for anything is always going to be fun. Stopping in London on the way back, on my birthday, which should be great.

That’s it for now. Will be in touch. SurfSki.Info will be in Spain to cover the event, so stay tuned.

Robberg in the Summer time

Easter Weekend had 3 major Surf Ski Races.

First up on Friday the 10th April was the Nelson Mandela Bay Surf Ski World Series race. Well done to Michele (the Head Coach) for winning the Womens event and finishing 13th Overall, and to Kyle Harris of Plett, who finished 20th overall and 2nd in his category. It was a fun course, of roughly 25km, with both headwind and downwind sections.

Then on Saturday 11th was the Plett Penny Pinchers SA Single Ski event. Michele won the Women’s SA Single Ski title, and finished 19th Overall. A big Well Done to Dave Rissik for finishing in a respectable 41st position. All that hard training has really paid off, and we are looking forward to helping Dave achieve his next big goal. The race course was pretty tough, with the wind mainly coming from head on, or side on. The downwind sections never really had the legnth to generate big runs. The Keurbooms River Mouth provided lots of entertainment, and ended up changing the race results a bit! Young Grant van der Walt (from Inland!) showed the older guys a thing or two, and ended up winning the title ahead of the very experienced HAnk McGregor, Matt Bouman, and Dawid Mocke.

On Sunday, it was the SA Doubles Champs. The race course was from Plett to Nature’s Valley, and you couldn’t ask for a more scenic course. Michele teamed up with Carol Joyce to win the Double Ski title. Well done to Dawid Mocke and Matt Bouman for taking the men’s title ahead of Hank McGregor and Grant van der Walt.

Photo’s to follow.