Hello everybody at Surf Hive! My name is Jasper, and I am writing to you from Cape Town, South Africa!
I recently posted an Introduction post to help you get to know me and my part of the world a bit better here: @jasperdick/introduceyourself-my-introduction-to-the
I'm just shy of 6'2... this board is 6'4. I've definitely added a traction pad since!
In that Introduction post I tried to give a brief explanation of how wonderful it is to live in Cape Town because it is always offshore somewhere! There's also spots that are exposed to swell and other spots that are sheltered from enormous swell!
The only downside is that the water is cold!
In Winter, with cold fronts creating large swells and NW winds, I often find myself surfing inside False Bay (yellow zone in the map above), which is a bit sheltered from the open ocean, and NW winds are offshore.
However, now the seasons are changing as we head into the Southern Hemisphere summer! From now on, the swell will be small to medium much more often. The wind will also often be blowing from the SE, usually quite hard. So now is the time to visit the red, green and blue zones in the map above, instead of the yellow zone... about ten minutes extra in the car for me! hahaha!
So! We want some spots that are very exposed to the main swell direction (from the SW) in the open ocean. Also, the SE wind is often so strong that it's even unpleasant as an offshore wind, creating spray off the wave that stings you! Ideally we want places in summer that are exposed to the swell, but have some steep cliffs or mountains on land to shelter you from the offshore wind a bit. Does Cape Town have any places like this? YES, of course we do! We have everything (except warm water hahaha!)!
Here's one such spot I visited last Sunday
People were pulling into barrels on the first section as the sandbar goes from deep to shallow quite quickly - often the inside section shut them down...
However, I didn't have the time to check out other spots so I paddled out to enjoy the crystal clear water. I noticed that even though the waves weren't too big, they were quite thick, fast and steep on take-off!
There were only a couple of people out at this spot, so it was easy for me to take a turn and paddle hard for this one - can you see the swimming body-surfer down the line? He was catching more waves than anyone else! Haha!
There's no turning back now! Bye-bye body-surfer!
On my feet and things are looking pretty promising!
Oh no wait... that next section is feeling the bottom and rising up to break a bit sooner than we'd like!
Ah! Oh dear! Better luck next time! Haha!
In all honesty. I tend to usually only catch waves where I think I have a good chance of making the drop. I need to spend more time at places like this, playing "Russian Roulette", in order to improve my skills in the quick, steep, hollow stuff. Luckily Cape Town has many spots like this for me to practice either with a normal board or a soft-top!
Sometimes...If it really is beyond me to get to my feet, I can also bodyboard at places like this!
So although the Cape Town summer is a bit of a bummer compared to the other three seasons, it's still going to be a lot of fun!
THE END