Wavescape has organised another Surf Film Festial between 5 and 14 December in Cape Town, where they will be screening epic surf movies.
They’ll have an art exhibition of nine crafted spoons, as well as a exhibition of underwater photographs by Tom Peschak. The exhibition will be held at the VEO Gallery from Wednesday 26 November until Wednesday 3 December, when we will auction the boards.
The final list of artists is Kim Longhurst, Scott Robertson, Trevor Paul, Ross Turpin, Leonora van Staden, Konradski, Motel7, Mak1, Willie Bester, and ND Mazin.
There will be eulogies to gritty documentaries about surfing in the Vietnam War; from big wave tow-ins at scary spot Aileens in Ireland to classic longboarding in two-foot Robertsport in Liberia; from the lanquid lyricism of longboard ballet in Beneath The Surface to an uplifting South African story about the Zulu surf riders of Umzumbe.
Wavescapes launches it’s Surf FIlm Festival on friday 5 December with a special outdoor screening at Clifton Fourth Beach (Saturday 6th is a weather day in case that southeaster is pumping!)
The venue is then move to the Brass Bell in Kalk Bay from Sunday 7 December until Wednesday 10 before returning to town for screenings twice a day at the Labia Cinema.
Firewire Surfboards are an interesting and probably one of the best implementations of the epoxy surfboard solutions available on the market at the moment.
You will most probably have seen the Firewire board with “Parabolic Balsa Rails”, which basically means instead of having a normal central stringer, the board has 2 balsa stringers on the rails. This makes the rails more rigid and the center of the board more flexible, so if you think a normal board has a rigid stringer in the middle and more flexible rails – thats how the sales pitch goes anyway.
Last week a ship ran aground, The Seawin, in heavy seas and came around at (a classic surf spot) Derdesteen. The beach is currently closed off, you can make out the tape in the photo after the break.
News reports say the ship wreck caused a fair amount of damage to the dune area, and the mostly wooden hull is breaking up.
The ship is sitting on the beach right in front of the surf spot car park, and the car park is currently full with waste removal equipment.
Surfing at Llandudno in Cape Town these days is a tricky (read as: not that fun) proposition. Since the Llandudno idiot post a lot has happened; ZigZag Magazine have just run an article about localism (one of the Llandudno idiots, Liam Woods, is actually named and pictured in it), I’ve been finding greener pastures around the Cape, heaps more people are surfing and generally scenes are changing for surfing. As for Llandudno itself this is the low down at the moment.
1. The banks are crap at Llandudno at the moment. Apparently this is because the sand the is supposed to blow over from Hout Bay, but not as much sand is making it over due to a large amount of development in Hout Bay.
2. On weekends Llandudno is a circus. I’ve heard stories of 50 guys out all paddling for 1-2 foot closeouts.
3. I have names and photos for the Llandudno idiot and supporter of mean localism. They are going on the new Name and Shame page.
It all sounds a bit bleak, but there are some proper nice blokes out in the water too, and Cape Town houses some brilliant waves – bring on the winter swells!
If you see these guys out, don’t attempt to catch any waves unless you want Wayne to shout at you.
Wayne Stewart
Wayne Stewart – Saying he is slightly high strung would be an understatement.
Liam Wood
Liam Wood – Although he is not the most agro person in the world, he teaches surfing and is happy to snake you all day long and drop in you just in case you are on the inside.
I’ve had a bit of bad luck with a (currently unnamed) surf shop in Cape Town. I bought a 4/3 Rip Curl Ultimate Elasto wetsuit, and after about 8 months the inner seams started to break and crack. The cracks made the liquid taping bend and curve and the gaps caused tones of chaffing and there were holes forming in the gaps of the suite – which were two reason to return the wetsuit from whence is came. Needless to say returning the wetsuit to the surf store is when the fun started.
Cape Town surfer has been very quite, mainly due to summer being completely flat. Now the winter surf is back I’ll pop in some more photo’s of how the surf in Cape Town is going down, and look forward to snagging some decent surf!
I went for a surf over the weekend, Sunday, but Llandudno was a little bit big and closing out everywhere, so I went to a spot that was a little bit smaller and it was epic, barrel after barrel. My arms were like noodles after a few hours and my legs were quite tired after pulling in on every wave!
On a separate note I have to give some feedback on my wetsuit. The suit in question is the new Billabong Solution Platinum. They retail for R3500 at Surf Zone Surf Shop in Cape Town. To start with I was not 100% impressed with my Billabong ‘Platinum’ wetsuit. But after surfing in the cold-ish waters for at least 2:30hrs I was still warm, so I guess they are pretty good, if not better than my old 4/3 Rip Curl Ultimate Elasto. Also a bonus is the 4/3 Billabong Solution Platinum feels like the Oneil Phsyco 3/2, nice and stretchy.
The surf was great and everyone was being very nice and friendly over the weekend, partly due to the abundant number of quality waves and barrels. And no Llandudno Idiots about – bonus.
Here is a video of the surf at Llandudno. It’s pretty much closing out the bay, but there were 2 blokes surfing, or at least trying!
I managed to sneak a little surf in last night. 1-2ft light offshore, mid pushing tide at Llandudno. I went in for a paddle, but managed to sneak a couple of wedgy ones. Pretty nice vibe in the water, Winston surfing his long board and some nutter doing hand stands on a 6-0 on a what was a 1 foot wave – I gave him 10 points for style and decided to not bother going switch as the nutter had already out done anything ‘crazy’ I could’ve done.
As for today, the surf is evern small, with Seapoint and Greenpoint having better conditions for Wakeboarding than surfing – no jokes. It’s like a pond/oil slick out there.
After posting my little rant about Llandudno I’ve been having lots of thoughts and reactions about surfing in the busy bosom of Cape Town.
The guy at Llandudno (granted a he is still a dick) was he was actually a blessing in disguise, because it made me start looking for new spots. I didn’t really feel like making the 20 minute drove from town to bump into him, so I drove 20 minutes the other way – which I did up the west coast.
Now I’m only talking about Big Bay and a little bit beyond, but it really is a different world up there. Everyone has always been friendly – even chatting to strangers (OMG) in the water and everyone was getting waves. I have to say I was getting pretty stocked seeing everyone get their fair share of waves.
Since I started venturing out of town, I have had a couple of the best surfs in years (since I went round the world to hawaii, fiji and oz) and having not felt stressed about what kind of agressive idiots there lurking in the lineup.
Things happen for a reason, which is why I got some cracking surfing up the west coast, and which is why karma will come round and kick selfish agressive surfers in the ass.
Next up will be a little note from someone elses opinion on Localism, a nice UCT student whilst we chatted surfing at Off The Wall and soon I’ll be posting some of the legalities surrounding agressive behaviour in the water and what your rights are.
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