As I sit here in Cape Town writing this, autumn has definitely arrived as have the groomed autumn swells coming from the roaring forties and smashing into Cape Town before becoming perfect walls in Jeffreys Bay or all the way up to Durban and beyond. Having run surf tours in South Africa and Mozambique for the past 13 years as well as to Indonesia for 7 years, one thing I have noticed is the concept of ‘surf season’ is a bit of a misconception.
Of course there is a time of year where you get the biggest swells, and a time of year where you will get dominant winds. But when you are planning a trip in advance and can’t do a ‘drop everything strike mission’ then prime season won’t necessarily deliver the best waves for you! The best Mozam I have ever surfed was in December, which is completely not “surf season”. And of all the trips we have run to Mozam the only one that really got ‘skunked’ for swell was a July/August 3 week trip, which most would say is ‘prime season’ for that area! Cape Town is not dissimilar, yes if you want to tow-in to 30 foot windy dungeons then winter is the best time, but some of the best Dungeons days have been in January. A lot of our best waves cook in summer, with the odd flat spell too.
The reason I am talking about this is that we have just finished a ‘season’ of South Africa trips, that is two 13-week trips from Cape Town to Mozambique, one starting in September and the other in January. The better surfers who come on our trips always wonder about the timing, and all I can say is don’t worry, we get plenty of swell year-round in South Africa! You probably won’t get 6-8 foot Supertubes in Jeffreys Bay, but you may well get it 3-4 ft and less crowded than winter would be! Without jabbering on any longer, here are a few clips NOT edited or posted by Ticket to Ride. The first two are from our trip leaders after the waves they scored in Mozam in November last year with bits of footage they got from the trip.
And here is a frame grab from Richey’s edit he made! Click here to watch the full clip.
And after the trip that just finished towards the end of March 2020, one of our customers decided to make a little thank you video for the trip leaders with footage of them he had collected over the trip. Nice and simple, the waves were cooking, just watch the clip here on our Instagram, the guy who made the clip has a private account. Here are some snaps from the last South Africa and Mozambique trips.
This time of year, April, I am usually preparing for Indo season! Wait, didn’t I just say these ‘seasons’ are a myth? Well yes, there are waves year-round in Indo, but we choose to run the trips starting in May. The last few years we would just run in May, June and July, but in 2019 we opened that up into July and August too because of popular demand and holidays worldwide over that period. Then we also added a boat trip, a super exciting addition to our offering over there! Having spent months organising it, the feeling of setting off on the boat in search of waves I had never been to before with an epic crew on board was in my top adventure memories for years. No phone signal, often no one else in sight, beautiful untouched islands and a pristine ocean; memories like that last a lifetime.
Unfortunately it doesn’t look like we are going to be having an Indo season this year, I think of my friends over there that I have made over the years and how they, their families and their businesses are being effected. All it does is motivate me even more to get back there as soon as we can!
That’s it for now, but next up I’ll giving you some insight into what life is like in Cape Town right now, and what “the Lockdown” looks like over here.