Hi all and welcome back to Ballito.
We enter into our final week on tour and it’s gotten off to a real bang as another fresh swell hits the coast.
On Wednesday we took some time out to visit the uShaka Marine World Aquarium in Durban. The aquarium has been designed in a sunken ship theme and is home to a wide variety of fish and other interesting ocean creatures.
After a tour of the aquarium and a visit to the penguin exhibit it was off to New Pier to get in a warm up session before Dene arrived for the final surfing assessment. The waves were small and fun, running both left and right and just perfect for our guys to do the show Dene what they were made of. The conditions continued on for the whole afternoon with the guys scoring a number of excellent rides – Dene was impressed, and I think the guys can be really proud of themselves for all the progress they had made over the past 3 months.
Yesterday the swell was up again with a nice, fresh offshore wind to keep the waves clean. Our crew managed to find an uncrowded spot in the middle of North Beach where we spent the rest of the day catching wave after wave after wave. Later that afternoon a few of the guys opted to go for a visit to the Sharks Board to learn more about this unique organisation which looks after the shark management program for the whole of KZN. We were given a tour of the facility and then sat in on a shark dissection – pretty interesting stuff!
This morning, I was woken up by the sound of the ocean in full tilt. The waves were just huge! Despite our best intentions it was just a little bit out of our league so we were only going to be afforded the pleasure of being spectators. Not one to miss a swell, I did paddle out for a few waves on my bodyboard, but they were few and far between as one needs to be VERY selective of which wave to take when the swell gets that big.
Not able to surf we all headed to Gateway in Umhlanga to hang out at the biggest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere. We watched a movie to kill time before we headed back to the Secret Spot to start on some the of the board shaping. Mike has been teaching some of the guys to shape their own boards which they are currently in the process of doing. It’s a fine art that takes years and years of practice, but under the watchful eye of Mike Smith, our guys are looking like pro’s.
Till next time
Take care,
Bevan and Jill