Well hello again. It has been a while now since we were last in touch, such is the nature of Mozambique and Africa. With limited internet and a slow-paced lifestyle we are adapting to fit into it. As a brief introduction the Mozambique part of the trip is very different to South Africa. It is purely a surf trip, exploring one of the most beautiful places in the world in the search for waves. We have traded in our minibuses for 4*4’s just to be able to get to our destinations, and we have two new crew on board, Ryan Ribbink who is the man in the know in Mozam, and his brother Carl. They are both really good surfers too and have been great additions to our team.
We started off in Ponta at an amazing place right on the beach. Ponta d’ Ouro is just across the border into Mozambique but already you can tell you are in a different country. For one everyone speaks Portuguese, but even the way the houses are built and the countryside (palm trees) is different to South Africa. Ponta was close to Paradise, with really clear warm water, a lovely beach and lots of sunshine. This is really like a holiday for the everyone with surfing every morning when the offshore wind blows then keeping entertained fishing, quad-biking, playing volleyball or lazing around reading/tanning in the afternoons.
The wave itself is an excellent right-hand sand-bottom point which breaks behind a rock slab then reels down into the bay. We got really lucky with 3 days of really good waves and several other fun days. Surfing new waves is always a challenge and this was no different, but once you start to get used to a wave it gets really fun. After a great week in Ponta we packed up from our little paradise and made the long drive up to Tofo (pronounced Tofu). The drive was real 4*4 terrain sand roads going off into the bush, and if it wasn’t for our guide Ryan I am not sure how we would have got there. His cars are really well kitted out for this kind of trip. Despite the distances not being that great, when you can only drive 40-60 km/h it would have been a 15-hr day had we driven straight to we decided to break the trip into two. We stayed at a lovely place just outside the capital for the night and arrived at Tofu with plenty of daylight to see where we were.
Tofo has a lot more variety in terms of waves, with two pointbreaks (one of which is really world-class) and several beach breaks. So far it has been quite small so we have just been enjoying the idyllic beach breaks, but the charts are showing some great swell coming later in the week so we are holding thumbs for that. If it is ‘on’ it could easily be the best waves I have ever surfed in my life!
Apologies for the briefness but will very little internet access (and even electricity in some places) we had a lot to cover. With the closing of airports and all that I think some of the group are hoping to be stuck out here for longer! I hope all of you reading this are safe somewhere and not stuck in an airport in Dubai or something like that! We will be in touch soon to let you know what we’ve been up to in Tofo.
Over and out from paradise…
Chris