Tag: surfing

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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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Surfing Mozambique’s surprise left-hander

Surfing Mozambiques surprise left

Surfing Mozambique’s surprise left-hander

Cyclone Dineo caused serious havoc in a lot of people’s lives, leaving behind destruction that will take years to rectify. But it also left us a proper left-hander. Right in the corner at The Dragon in Tofinho.

After imagining many times that one day a left would magically appear in Mozambique, it would appear out of nowhere – be a top to bottom pitching barreling rip wave that made you work and sweat and surf and surf and surf…well, it appeared. The featured picture is more to show where it is, there was only Captain Gallop and myself in the water AGAIN! So no more pics, but the main factor in this miraculous birth of a wave is very clear in the seascape. THERE IS NO SAND.

Right from Praia do Rocha in the south, past Backdoor, around the point at Tofinho, across the Dragon, into the bay, and all along to Tofo. There is nothing. Beaches have vanished completely. The football pitch sized beach on the wild side (if you can call it that), of Praia do Tofo, is gone. You have to walk half up the dune at high tide. It’s an amazing spectacle. The coastline in Mozambique is so subject to change by the elements.

Back to the top to bottom pitching barreling rip wave that made you work and sweat and surf and surf and surf.

The first day my eyes nearly popped out of my head. I saw it in the perfect blue warm conditions we came here for. It was hammering through. Head high and mean.

What had happened, is that the removal of all the sand scoured out the bay at The Dragon, right back to the primary dune. Exposing a reef! So the waves that come off The Dragon point reef (which is well surfed every high tide every day when this happens), spill into the corner, the water escapes north and drags across this reborn reef and straight out into the oncoming swells. Ok the current was mean, but that’s what makes these kind of waves stand up and go so fast.

We had to stop surfing eventually!

The next day was the same as the tide barely moved being in full neaps. Luckily for the neaps as the current would have been undo-able in spring tides. Water moves so fast with the 4m spring tide range around this area.

The next day was the same.

And the next.

And the next, until it was time to make travel arrangements and go West.

We left it there for any takers. A cooking powerful hollow EMPTY left in Mozambique.

PS except for Tofinho, the other waves are all still operating just fine. Backdoor is a bit wild as the lack of sand means it breaks right onto that shelf. I still cannot get over the power that bay holds. At 10 foot the ground shakes when the sets break – huge perfect a-frames that will shake your bones. The bay in Tofo has many different faces through the tides with the sandbanks producing long running lefts and rights at low tide and playful shorebreaks at high.

For any other surfing info or accommodation or tour options, buzz Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com…or click here for more.

https://www.facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

 

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Cell C Goodwave 2017 – Watching The Horizon

Cell C Goodwave 2017

Cell C Goodwave 2017 – Watching The Horizon

Craig Jarvis keeping us up to date for the upcoming event…Thanks Jarvi!

Cell C Goodwave teaser video – www.youtube.com/watch

New Pier, Durban – The recent fast and wild storm swell has passed, and we’re all looking forward to the next clean, deep-lined ‘Goodwave swell’ to show up at New Pier.

The Cell C Goodwave official swell forecaster Spike from Wavescape had this to say about the last swell. “That swell contains a lot of mixed up directions and intervals and sizes. These swells straight off the end of the wind fetch will always create good individual waves every now and then, but with a lot of weak, and bumpy waves in between.”

Wild and stormy seas from the last swell ©Flanagan

According to Spike there are bits and pieces on the maps for the upcoming weeks.

“The storms are fragmented and lacking uniformity and directional fetch for Durban,” reckoned Spike. “The high pressure systems are still ruling the roost, sitting too far south. A small storm does form off the coast on Friday, and has a small chance of upgrading into something interesting next week, but it’s early days for that. The other system is a giant storm just north of the ice shelf that blasts a SSE fetch towards Durban this Thursday. However it’s a five-day travel away, and it must pass through the Roaring Forties and several cold fronts before it makes landfall next week, with the swell direction also likely to be too southerly.”

Contest Director Jason Ribbink is confident that the Cell C Goodwave will run within a fairly short period of time.

“As Spike mentioned, we are not looking for those swells that have so many different variables, with different wave heights and directions,” said Ribbink. “We’re waiting for that classic day when the New Pier is just perfect, big barrels all day. When it comes the event will run.”

As an added bonus on the day, Cell C Durban is going to be offering free WiFi on the beach and around the contest site all day. So apart from watching the action live you can get all the replays, commentary and scores on your phone or device for free. This is pretty cool. If you happen to miss a 10-point ride or something else just as remarkable, then it’s going to be available for you on your phone, and you can access via Cell C’s free WiFi.

• The Cell C Goodwave is a South African Surfing Legends event, with Jason Ribbink the contest director.

• California Dreaming, overlooking New Pier on the beachfront, will host the competition on the day. Oakley and Sun International are both supporting sponsors.

• The four World Surf League Specialty Events for 2017 can be found herehttp://www.worldsurfleague.com/events/2017/spec

Invited surfers, in no order:

Brandon Jackson, Matt McGillivray, Dale Staples, Shane Sykes, Mikey February, Josh Redman, Damien Fahrenfort, Dan Redman, Mike Frew, Simon Nicholson, Gavin Roberts, Frankie Oberholzer, Matt Bromley, Davey Weare, Grant Baker, Chris Leppan, Sean Holmes, Ricky Basnett, Jason Ribbink, Beyrick de Vries, Gary van Wieringen, Dylan Lightfoot, Chad du Toit, Brendan O’Connor, Warwick Wright, Noel Rahme, Shane Thorne, Paul Canning, Richard Kidd, Davey van Zyl, Robbie Schofield, Greg Emslie.

Alternate surfers, in no order:

Secret International VIP, Alan Johns, Josh Smit, Jordy Maree, Adin Jeenes, Simon Fish, Joshe Faulkner, Matt Pallet, Stever Sawyer, Dylan Stewart, Lee Bisset, Scott Venter, Billy Payne, Scott Hamilton, Ryan Payne, Sam Christianson, Derek Footit, Ben Dancaster, Bevan Willis, Koby Oberholzer, Antonio Bortoletto, Manfred Adrio, Wes O’Driscoll, Elton Cuthbert, Andrew Lange, Blane Wood, Chris Frolich, Wade Simkiss, Rene Terblanche, Frank Solomon, Mikhael ‘MK’ Vawda, Casey Grant, Andrew Banks.

The Cell C Goodwave – in loving memory of Lee Wolins.

 

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