Hello everyone, and especially the SurfHive Community! It's Jasper, the musical-surfer dad from Cape Town in South Africa. I'm back in Cape Town itself after my little holiday last weekend.
I was recently reading a post by @betterthanhome, where we was sharing some amazing footage of a perfect swell hitting the Sunshine Coast in Australia...
You can check it out here: @betterthanhome/perfect-swell-hits-the-sunshine-coast-in-australia
Before you get the photos of people tackling glassy barrels, he shares pictures from his high-rise apartment balcony, where you can see an entire line-up, and how disgustingly crowded it is by South African standards!
My comment on his post read as follows: "Wow - those crowds are a South African's nightmare! I usually grumble about sharing the line-up with ANYONE! Hahaha!"
He responded by saying he went in for an hour and caught one wave that entire time - yes an absolute nightmare!
As for me, I was only half-joking... let's use today's surf session as an example...
The swell was small and the winds were a soft South, so I decided to go to actual town for a change...
If I divide the Cape Town surfer's four main zones to go wave hunting, "town" is the CDB area towards the Northern end of the green zone...
Here is one of the spots in the region that is actually well-known enough to feature in my Guidebook of surf-spots in South Africa... Cape Town has at least 50 recognized surf-spots, but also plenty of lesser-known semi-secrets...
This spot was looking quite steep and close to rocks at the take-off, and then fading quite fast into a deeper bay. Perhaps I would have wanted to give it a try... but there were at least 6 people in the water, and usually only about 2 waves per sporadic set... by my standards that is CROWDED OUT!
So instead I paddled out alone at a semi-secret novelty that starts next to dry rocks like this...
And then also fades into deeper waters...
And then you have to remember not to surf into these dry rocks at the end either...
In 30 minutes I caught far more waves than I would have got in 2 hours amongst the locals at the more established break... here's the beginning of the last one, doing funny things as it draws off that barely submerged slab of rock...
...and what a beautiful view of Lion's Head. Autumn (May) is truly Cape Town's secret season! We often have blue sky days like this without it being too hot, and the wind is often much softer than mid-summer or mid-winter as well!
I think this left coming at me might be doable on a full high tide? However, I straighten out, head to the beach and enjoy a beautiful scenic drive the long way home along the coast...
So yeah, sometimes when it comes to a "crowd", I will choose quantity of waves at an "uncrowded" spot over the quality of waves at a "crowded" one. I'm sure all you Brazilians and Australians think I am mad to think 6 is a crowd! Hahaha!
THE END