Plettenberg Bay is a quaint little holiday town 6hrs drive up the coast from Cape Town and as far as small towns go this personally has to be the best one on our coast, for many reasons, but mainly for its incredible beauty.
Robberg Point serves as the beautiful backdrop for our Surf lessons
We settled into our accommodation and there was much excitement amongst us all. Cape Town was fantastic but now that we’d hit the road it really started to feel as if the trip was starting to gain momentum and the bliss in all things new when travelling was visible on everyones faces as we drove into the incredibly beautiful Plettenberg Bay. We were welcomed at the beach upon arrival by perfect 3 ft waves being ridden by the truest of locals, pods of Dolphins stretched out across the bay, we hadn’t even been in Plett 10 minutes and we were already in awe of the place. The main backdrop for the bay in Plett is called The Robberg Point, we hiked it one morning to take advantage of its vantage points for views across the bay.
Despite Plett’s calm and cool feel outside of the water, in the water it can sometimes be quite different and on every single trip I’ve run here in the past we’ve had a few heavier days and it really requires all our riders to step outside of the newly formed comfort zone they’d have built up after two weeks learning to surf in Cape Town (Muizenberg)
John stepping up
Plett is one of those waves that can make you or break you and commitment is the call out here no matter what the size. These faster and steeper breaking waves require accuracy and speed and it is a step up from what the guys got used to in the beginner friendly Muizenberg. Luckily we had the local expertise from our coach and local legend John Henry, he always knew which banks were best and on which tides, this was essential for our whole week there as one of the swells of the year rolled through. We timed and managed our coaching sessions well and had a bit of everything throughout, really giving the crew an opportunity to test themselves in all conditions. In the free surfs it was mainly the boys out putting body and boards on the line in the large swell.
It wasn’t always big and scary, in fact we mostly had it as good as this. Neville obliges
Our last evening in Plett was near perfect and a couple of us surfed a spot called the Wreck in what later turned out to be the greatest surf session I’ve ever experienced in Plett. I was lucky enough to be in the water and not behind the lens on this occasion but Lexie was on hand to snap a few of the great pictures below. The gallery is a mix and mash from our time in Plett.
After week of getting accustomed to larger and scarier surf in Plett we headed a bit further up the coast on a pilgrimage every surfer should make in their life time, to the land of the worlds best right hand point break, Jeffreys Bay. This wasn’t before the group was once again called upon to step up to the plate and take on another fear, the worlds highest bridge bungy at a casual 216m! I’m fortunate enough to have done it quite a few times and I rather enjoy it, for everybody else it was a mixed bag of emotions with nobody regretting having done it, but a few just rather wouldn’t opt to do it again and the others frothing to give it another go!
So we’re 3 weeks down in the South African surf adventure and now into our 4th, currently in Jbay. It’s been due a while but I managed to get some time finally to put this short video together of some of our time in South Africa so far, I hope you enjoy it 🙂
Till next time 🙂
cheers
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