Friday, August 7, 2009

Jeffrey's Bay. Surfing - my verdict.

This entry now brings me completely up to date. We haven't had much internet access over the past week or so, so I have been writing everything down and then writing up when I can. At the moment we are in Jeffrey's Bay. The boys are still asleep in bed at Island Vibe Back Packers, and I am feeling slightly stiff after sleeping on the beach last night following a full moon beach party.

The boys didn't sleep on the beach and they were tucked up in bed by midnight after watching lots of loonies juggle fire and other crazy things around a big fire on the beach whuilst listening to Dan and some other guys play guitars, some othe guys play drums and it was all rather cool and relaxed. Though by 3:00am I decided to discard the builders helmet that someone had plonked on my head and get my head down.

Jeffrey's Bay is South Africa's foremost centre of surfing and surf culture. Surfers from all over the globe flock here to ride 'Supertubes' which has been described as the perfect wave. The pro Billabong championship was here just a few weeks age with the worlds top surfers and I guess this is really something of a surfers paradise, complete with huge Billabong, Quicksilver and Roxy stores in the town.

I had a 2 hour surf lesson today with the dreadlocked Rob and I am now at the stage of getting my back foot up, but I am afraid my bulky frame isn't quite as flexible as it used to be, and the added restirction of a wetsuit, made getting the front foot up almost impossible. We surfed pretty much most of the day and both Kieran and Dan are standing up no problems. Some of the waves are quite big and powerful and I had trouble staying on my board some of the time, but the lads coped really well and Dan is looking the part with his blond dreadlocks. I really enjoyed surfing today, but I am still not convinced surfing is for me.

I think that is mainly down to surfers, who I find quite possibly the most irritating breed on the planet at times. Is it really that hard to string more than a few words together. Do we have to act like we are stoned all the time. Seriously, adding 'dude' and 'man' onto the end of every sentence is not cool. And guys, there are other things going on in the planet aside surfing.

What I don't get is why do surfers move around on land at the pace of a sloth, but as soon as they get their wetsuits on, they spring down to the water as if the last wave ever was just about to break and if they didn't get their fix they would be in cold turkey for the rest of their lives.

Fortunately, most people that stay at Island Vibe are travellers or back packers and have stopped off to have a go at surfing or they do surf but don't feel the need to bore the rest of the planet about it and enjoy a conversation about other things too. We have met some great people here and we have all enjoyed surfing together and having a laugh, but generally speaking, the consensus is most surfers are tools and to conclude and deliver my verdict, I am adding surfers to my list of people that I would exterminate first if I was King of the World. I would probably place them somewhere inbetween Jehova's Witnesses and Traffic Wardens. I make no apologies to any traffic wardens who might be reading this who are JW and like to surf!

Someone who I wouldn't extermintae is Simon, a really nice guy we have met who has been bumming around Africa for 7 years. Simon lives in a tent and gets by by selling jewerelly. His big long dreadlocks attracted the boys to him and they bombarded him with questions yesterday whilst going through his jewerelly range where he made bracelets and ankle bracelets which both boys, and actually me now, are laden with.

No comments:

Post a Comment