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JBay Winterfest 2018 – All The Facts

Jordy Smith winning his Round 1 heat scoring a Perfect 10 JBay Winterfest. Smith will trying again at this years JBay Winterfest 2018

JBay Winterfest 2018 Quick Facts

Matt Wilkinson © WSL/Cestari

JBay – The JBay Winterfest 2018 promises to be an action-packed two weeks of sports and cultural events, with an amazing line-up of competitions and happenings. The town of JBay will light up for this festival, with foreign competitors and media flocking into town for the festival, along with local competitors, media, spectators and fans, as all the various tournaments unfold.

Corona Open JBay Men and Women

Now entering its sixth year, the JBay Winterfest is anchored by the Corona Open JBay Men’s and Women’s Championship Tour (CT) surfing event at Supertubes, presented by the World Surf League. World champions, former event champions and everyone else on the CT will be present, including John John Florence, Kelly Slater, Jordy Smith, Filipe Toledo and tour rookie Mikey February. On the Women’s side we can expect Steph Gilmore, Carissa Moore, Lakey Peterson and Tatiana Weston-Web amongst others. The waiting period for the events are from 2-16 July.

Carissa Moore © WSL/Cestari

Other events include:

The Oakley X-Over.

This celebrity cross-over event comprises golf, mountain biking and surfing, and confirmed entries include Jean De Villiers, Butch James, Tonderai Chavhanga, Garreth McClellan, Ruan De Smidt and John Smit, to name a few. It will take place on 5-6 July.


Tom Whitaker © Kolesky/Nikon/Lexar

The Funduro.

Slake Adventures will be hosting their fifth JBay Winterfest Funduro this year. The main loop consists of 15 km single track and is measured as easy-medium in difficulty. The terrain will consist of both flat and technical riding. The new unridden terrain will be super fun with some surprises on the way. The event will take place on Saturday 7 July.

Funduro action © Kody McGregor

The JBay Windfarm MTB Classic.

Established as one of the top events on the Eastern Cape off-road calendar, the JBay Wind Farm MTB Classic promises to once again be a highlight of the JBay Winterfest.

Over the past five years, organisers of the JBay Wind Farm MTB Classic have worked each year to innovate and improve both the routes and rider experience. The event will take place 14 July


Photo © Jazz Kuschke

Endurade JBay X Trail Run

The Endurade JBayX is unique in concept, entailing 3 individual 20Km trail runs, all starting 12-hours apart, showcasing the best of the Jeffreys Bay area. The total distance covered will be just over 60km.

A 10km trail run and 5km fun beach run / walk will be presented on Sunday 15 July, starting at 9:00am and 10:00am respectively. Both these events will be suitable for families, friends, supporters and first time trail runners. This takes place from 13-15 July.

Coldwater Classic

Now in its 6th year, the Coldwater Classic forms part of the JBay Winterfest being held from 2nd – 17th July 2018 in Jeffreys Bay.

Swimmers can experience the thrill and challenge of swimming a triple mile in sub 15 degree water where swimmers wear one Speedo type costume, goggles and a standard silicone swim cap (English Channel swimming rules apply). This takes place on 8 July.

Skins Fishing Competition

The 6th Winterfest Skins Fishing Competition will be taking place during this year’s JBay Winterfest. This event has seen massive growth over the past five years and is now one of the biggest and most unique shore angling competitions in South Africa!

It is literately divided into six mini comps or ‘skins’ each lasting one hour. The person who catches the highest-scoring fish for that hour will win the R3000 cash ‘skin’ and any other prizes allocated to that skin. If it happens that no fish are recorded for any skin, the cash (and other prizes) will carry over to the next skin (this will then be worth R6000) etc. This takes place on 14 July.

More information on the JBay Winterfest can be found at www.jbaywinterfest.com

Co-sponsors include Oakley and the Kouga Municipality.

The event hash tag is #jbaywinterfest

The JBay Winterfest social media channels:

Website: www.jbaywinterfest.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jbaywinterfest????

Instagram: @jbaywinterfest

Follow The Sardine News for more updates.

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Surfing Sathanes

Surfing Sathanes

Surfing Sathanes

Surfing Sathanes with an energetic Dustin Volker aka Krusty, and a polished Chris Leppan, this film with camera lady Riz Laine and edit by Xonalanga, tells the real story of surfing the fabled Mozambican point breaks.

A fickle coastline at best, Mozambique surf spots much prefer east swells, which start hammering though as the cyclone season kicks into gear. The swells in this clip were south swells, and as you can see, the wave seems to warble a tad.

It’s great surfing as usual. Krusty kills it on his backhand whilst natural footer Chris is just loving his time up here in the tropics. Right hander after right hander after right hander.

It’s been a good summer so far. And with the first Cyclone, “AVA”, having already caused mayhem on the east side of Madagascar, it looks to be a good season into 2018. This cyclone made landfall half way down Mad, and the steep mountain escarpment that side broke it’s speed from 150kph right down. Where it careened off south-east and out to sea.

But not without sending us some of it’s juices in the form of a punchy east swell, that lit up the Tofo Bay at high tide, with some perfect shore-breaking waves, for quite a few days. It wasn’t big enough for the Barra sand to come alive. But that’s coming soon!

There is a tropical depression way up top, in the cyclone factory right now. Will it form up into a real spinner? The ones we want are not the ones that come into the Mozambique Channel at all. Those randomly cause havoc and chaos, and are literally completey unpredictable. No, the ones we want spin-off and hang around the very tip of Mad. Those are the conditions to watch for.

Get your paddling arms on! These swells are short period and very strong.

Check out our offerings in the Trips and Travel menu at top. Or click here.

And lets go surfing!

Catch us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

More from surfing this area in Mozambique…

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Video: Surfing Fatimas Nest in the Afternoon

Surfing Fatimas Nest-in-the

Video: Surfing Fatimas Nest in the Afternoon

Fatimas Nest, venue of each years Ocean Fest on Praia do Tofo, also plays host to a real fun surf spot. Right out front of the restaurant!

Featuring Renske Massing aka The Frenzy is an ISA Qualified Surf Coach, who has spent many seasons in Tofo and surrounds and even has a house here.  Casa Frenzy…just down the beach from Fatimas. Renske surfs a longboard this sunny afternoon, with another surfing local, Joao Loureiro joining her for the quick session.

Renske is introduced into the insert by Mozambican TV Personality Ras Ghotaz. Ghotaz runs a music show on TV Gugu on Saturdays at 20h00 each week. Ras Ghotaz is also involved in the production and running of the Ocean Fest. Which once again, was a huge party this year.

The sounds are from a local church family gathering, where the lyrics are about doing whatever it is they can to uplift their community. Language – Bithonga.

The wave out front of Fatimas has kept many a surfer sane – as the more fickle Tofinho carefully guards her secrets. Sometimes for months at a time! But there will always be a wave to ride in the bay at Tofo. Sometimes long peeling rights are served up. Or powerful little shorebreaks. Spread out all over the place. Sometimes right up in the corner, the little right-hand point break comes alive. Peels for its entire 100 metre length!

The amount of sand that moves up here in Mozambique is phenomenal. Waves can literally appear out of nowhere. And disappear a week later!

But it’s this endless variation, coupled with huge tides (sometimes 5 metres or more), that makes the place so interesting for surfers and other ocean lovers.

Click on over to Fatimas Nest page on The Sardine News for options and more information.

Catch us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

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Cooking waves at Saint Michaels today this 18 July 2017

Saint Michaels today this 18 July 2017 (c) Jay Steenkamp

Cooking waves at Saint Michaels today this 18 July 2017

There are cooking waves at Saint Michaels today this 18 July 2017, as the attached super photo by undercover sardine spy Jay Steenkamp, shows. Jay has no sardine news to report, but these big swells and cold conditions are pre-requisites and precursors to their hopeful arrival.

Some other cool pics submitted lately, that portray south coast, living this time of the year…

Come and enjoy the sunny (well most days!) south coast of KZN Natal, with the team at The Umzimkulu Marina. Check out their website and get in touch here http://umzimkulu.co.za

For more information on the annual sardine run, click here for a listing of all recent 2107 reports…

https://thesardine.co.za/?s=sardine+run+2017

And a cool video clip from Offshore Africa in Port St. Johns, showing yet another baitball down south on The Wild Coast…


 

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Video: Surfing Praia do Rocha

Grant Gilmour and Chad Leavitt discuss the paddle out

Video: Surfing Praia do Rocha

Surfing Praia do Rocha with the cool crew of Grant Gilmour, Chad Leavitt and Branco Mijulkov.

Grant Gilmour, Chad Levitt and Branco Mijulkov star in the surf movie style flick of a surf patrol to Praia do Rocha, Inhambane, Mozambique. A fun session great for laughs and a few cool clips – all done on cellphones.

The sand has finally returned to Tofinho reportedly, but it doesn’t mean we won’t be doing the odd dawn patrol down Praia do Rocha way.

To stay in Tofinho, check out Oceano Azul here.

To stay a little up the beach from Tofo, check out LalaLand.

And for smoking hot pizza, check out Branko’s here.

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