Hi all.
It gives me great pleasure to greet you all from a very sunny Jeffrey's Bay. This little, coastal treasure nestled away in the Eastern Cape is to be our home for the next few days – and what a home it is!
Before I go on though, I'll quickly sum things up from our time in Plett. Wednesday saw the last of the big storm swell and the arrival of our first real on-shore conditions. While Ed and I did try for a surf in the morning, the conditions proved to be just a little too topsy-turvy so it ended up being a very short session. We decided rather to spend the day packing our things and getting ready for the trip to J-Bay. In the evening John and Donna came around to wish us farewell and John told the guys some stories of his sessions during the big swell.
On Thursday morning we made our way east along the coast towards Jeffrey's Bay. From here on the landscape starts to take on quite a noticeable change as we come to the last of the very big mountain ranges and head into the hills and valleys of the Eastern Cape. The drive from Plett was short and sweet, made even shorter and sweeter by the sheer beauty of the surroundings as we drove.
Arriving in J-Bay is always a personal treat for me. Being one of my favorite towns in the country I always look forward to when I get to visit again. It's one of those places that seems to have a mystical allure that is really hard to put your finger on. Mike even made the comment that he too was hooked on the place and we'd only been there a few hours.
After unpacking our bags and settling into our new hostel I took the guys on the grand tour of the town. J-Bay is the home of Billabong South Africa so our first stop on the tour was at the Billabong factory store where, no doubt our crew will visit again to get kitted out with some new surf gear. Then it was off to see some of the surf spots. By far the most famous wave in South Africa, Supertubes is almost the reason why Jeffrey's Bay even exists. This right-hand point break is the mecca of surfing in the country and has a long history of surf tradition and culture. The wave was first surfed in 1964 and since then literally thousands of people have come from all over the world in the hopes of catching this spot on a good day. For our crew though, Supertubes is just for the looking as this wave can get quite nasty at times and breaks over a shallow reef, but even just watching some of the locals lay into these waves is something to behold.
After lunch we headed back to the hostel and our local beach to do a bit of surfing of our own. The waves were a little bigger than the ones we've been riding so it took some getting used to but by the time everyone had caught a wave it was a little easier to relax and settle into the new conditions. The evening surf was to be one of highlights of the trip. At one point we were joined by a pod of dolphins who decided that they wanted to catch a few waves themselves. Just as they arrived the sun began to set in a fluorescent display of pink and orange. The combination of waves, dolphins and back lighting made for a truly surreal picture and one that none of us will forget in a hurry.
Yesterday we began our lessons with Etiene Ventre who is the South African juniors coach this year. Now that the guys are up and riding, Etiene's job will be to take the guys to the next level and introduce them all to basic turns and trimming. For the first lesson though, Etiene went through the safety briefing for our new spot at Kitchen Windows as well as a few key points on positioning in the water. The lesson went down well and everyone enjoyed the perfect conditions and put in some good wave time. With our hostel being right on the beach we're defiantly going to be putting in some serious hours in the water and a quick glance at the forecast is showing that we might be in for some excellent waves to boot. So from me here in J-Bay…
Catch you all later
Bevan