Jeffreys Bay continued to treat us well with great waves and in between we found some time to go and help out in the township, went to see how a surfboard is made from scratch and took a trip out to surf the famous Cape St Francis.
‘Cape St Francis is pure perfection’
Cape St Francis was made famous in the original surf movie, ‘The Endless Summer’. They found absolutely perfect waves at Bruce’s Beauties, before Supertubes was considered surfable, and since that day thousands of surfers have made the pilgrimage to both St Francis and later Jeffreys Bay. The day we chose to head out to St Francis was small in J-Bay and we headed to check out Seal Point in Cape St Francis. The point was a bit small so we went to the beachbreak and got some fun little waves. The scenery when surfing Seals, and how perfect and clear the water is really made it a memorable experience.
‘Building surfboards is an art’
How are surfboards actually made? You may think that that is a common question for people learning to surf, but it often seems overlooked. With tennis or cricket or hockey or countless other sports you go to a shop and buy your equipment and know that is has been churned out of some factory and that’s just how it is. Surfing is different, the boards are largely made by hand. This is changing in some areas and you do have more and more boards coming out of China, but they certainly have not taken over the market yet. They are mainly beginner boards and when it comes to surfing we really need them to be made to suit the surfers perfectly: their ability, size, weight, and preference as well as for the conditions the board will be surfed in.
In light of the above you get a lot of ‘backyard shapers’ who are making 15-30 boards a month as well as some bigger ‘factory’ shapers who are probably doing between 50-100 boards. Either way they are personalized for the surfer and a lot of care has gone into them. We visited Mikey Meyer’s premises where we got to see parts of the full process from choosing the surfboard blank to seeing the outline being cut, a bit of planing and how the glassing, and later sanding is done. It is a serious process and takes a lot of work!! It makes the end product as special as it is though and hopefully the energy put in is translated into enjoyment when riding the board.
‘Helping out’
In J-Bay there are two main townships which are actually situated close to Island Vibe, and on each trip we find a different project to do and often at different schools too. Recently we have been helping a crèche which was started from scratch and now has 35-40 kids in it. We have fixed a few things before and this time we focused on getting the main gate fixed up as well as trying to patch up the holes in the fence. The guys put in a great effort and Nomsa was very appreciative for the help.
Jefrreys Bay was a fantastic stop on the trip, we had some fun parties, dress-ups and good times. Next stop is Chinsta which is a little more in the bush but you’ll have to pop back soon to see the video and photos from there.
We are having an amazing trip so far,
Chris