tools September 28, 2010
Carparks… I think watching the 9-5 desperadoes try squeeze in a late surf with a bat and cold Hansa quart in hand whilst listening to Bob Dylan and Simon Garfunkel- if it’s my mom’s car(my old Isuzu got sold in Mozam to kickstart the surfing career), or in my dad’s bakkie: Rage, Black Sabbath, Wolfmother and Jeff Buckley – the last remnants of my CD collection… but this is how we roll on the south coast- I mean there are enough redneck hick-bars and shebeens to sedate the continent! Still, every time I come back here the first thing I end up doing is taking a cruise to all my favorite carparks, checking the banks, every carpark I see all kinds of other peeps doing the same as me, just cruising… having a quiet drink, reading the paper, scribbling angst and generally zoning out to a view we could never afford I guess….
I came home the other day and drove into my home beach carpark Umtentweni with my favorite Sabbath tune blaring only to be confronted by a steroid-addled Afrikaner with about 150 kilos of fake muscle all stubbly and pink gleaming in the sun- two clumsy stokes of zinc across nose and cheeks and starts preaching to me about carpark etiquette… Something about people don’t come to the carpark to be irritated by loud music(?!?!), “they want to maar enjoy the view” all the while my Ridgeback Tas stops him mid-sentence with a somewhat typical response barking rabid at his intrusion. My reply was something along the lines of: “Now my dog’s barking at you and that irritates me so why don’t you go sit in your beach buggy and continue the tanning sesh…” How dare he preach to me about carpark etiquette?
Every afternoon I hang out in carparks here on the south coast! You see, waves mostly happen in the morning here, depending on the tides, depending on a lot really- the coast is its own place, people who have lived and surfed here speak reverently but quietly about this place-the truth is, it chews people up and spits them back out again, much like the waves when they’re on. Growing up in a place full of waves sounds dreamy- for some reason though this place is more a ghost coast of shattered dreams and illusions then the Goldy or California. Recessions bite harder here, being top domestic tourist destination for the South African massive the most obvious reminders of ‘roman intrusion’ are scores of “boere-Tuscan’ inspired architectural aberrations- most parents in my generation had no choice but bring their sons and daughters up and ship them out to wherever they had a better future in the consumerist machine. Not me, I come home every winter to get my fill of family vibes and morning offshores chasing the sunrise with a flask of coffee and hot lady Baroness von Tass my most regal ridgeback in the front of an old Isuzu diesel keeping the warmth gets me real nostalgic…
Good times in carparks- the heart and soul of us warped South coast surfers. This year alone I have lurked many a carpark, from Indo to Papua New Guinea to Mozam to J-bay to Cape Town. I’m off to Ireland next month all my Irish buddys I wanted to hook up with said the same thing- head to the carpark overlooking the main break in Lahinch and you’ll find the boys…a carpark is probably where you’ll find me somewhere in the world, Seal Point carpark is still my favourite, so many familiar faces, the last vestige of surf culture exists untainted there for now it seems only typical that everything goes down in the carpark…
 Lurking hard on the coast a few years back with Dylan 'shut your face' Stewart and Stanley BAdgina i mean Badger  The Baroness von TASanensky! Some carparks I don’t want you to find me in as they are right in front of my favourite waves so don’t expect me to be friendly there!!! This year my carpark high and lowlight was in the carpark I don’t want you to know about on one of the best day of waves this year… I rolled in super-early with Twiggy and the carpark was empty and beautiful like the line-up…by the time we decided to paddle out ten of the best and most high-profile surfers in SA today rock up! I cringe visibly and Twig chuckles- I was caught between saying hello to all these ou’s- my friends or lashing out at them with the nearest sharp instrument(most likely my tongue!) like a good local would! Except these were my boys, so I stepped out of that car with a smile/snarl thing on and greeted Davey Weare and Simmo, then Casey and Wok, then Paul Daniel, Spex and Rosey, finally Caleb the filmer guy rounded it off by rolling into the carpark with none other then Frankie O himself.
Enter Cape legend Pierre de Villiers into the carpark as im suiting up and the cringe-meter hits and an all-time high. His body language and reaction to a packed carpark fulla pro surfers was obvious but now hold on here I think: This is MY carpark, and Pierre has been a guest of my family and the Maisch’s over the past ten or so Winters so I walk over and shake hands. I tell him “Pierre it’s cranking, lets just paddle out…” amongst other respectful pleas not for judgement as Frankie O my angel pulls in and I introduce them- two legends, not on the topic of waves but on fishing! I take my cue and scramble out there before any real locals saw me!!
What ensued was a morning of perfect waves with just about every wave ridden perfectly! And we rode them until there was nothing left but a light onshore and a thirst for quarts in the carpark South coast style! Frank was in top-form after his third one, Hearn-dog was tripping on what a collision of surfers we had and what insane surfing went down, Cynthia Cole the legend was there with her daughter Candi and some of the local girls, the beer was gold and carparks will always and forever be my lounge, bar and chill out spot of choice!
But the bottom line is: you cant pull into just any carpark on a morning like that and all paddle out, once-off it was great- but the holy shitstorm I had to endure after that from the local surfing community could never be worth it again. So be warned: Carparks have politics and an unwritten law about them based on mutual respect- just like the line-up and take note, because if that happens next year or ever again, in fact if anyone comes down there to shoot photos or video without putting something back in like supporting the local bar or take-away and showing due respect to the locals rights to surf there without you- you will not be welcome!!! shalom
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 September 27, 2010
 Thats my youngest Indie, happily playing in the cockpit whilst a storm builds In my last post I moaned about the issues faced by a surfing yachtsman arriving with his boat on foreign shores. I am writing about this as many of you are under the false impression that sailing a boat around the world and hunting for surf is all golden sunsets and feathering barrels. Although I must admit that when we started this crazy mission I thought so too. They even refer to the route that we are taking across the Pacific as the ‘Milk Run’. It’s so-called tradewind sailing, and when we were in the planning stages of this adventure I was picturing myself at the helm of my yacht, doing minor sail changes as we cut across the Pacific with the wind at hour backs. F$%k was I wrong. But I am going off topic here. I have already moaned in previous blogs about how we kukked off during our 24 day crossing from the Galapagos to the Marquesas. No, right now I am moaning about how hard we yotties have it once we are at our destination. Often we get asked by other yachties whether we climbed that mountain, visited some museum, or visited a pearl farm or whatever. I just stare at them blankly and motion over to my two young sons playing in the cockpit.  With two young kids you can never be too far from your boat... Yes, in our case you have to add kids to this equation, and the youngest has a daily lunch time sleep from 12 till 2pm. That leaves us with a few hours in the morning and a few in the afternoon to get ashore and go do something fun. So in the end, shore excursions are few and far between. The first 2 weeks at any destination is in any event spent fixing everything that went wrong on the way there. Now some of you may ask, ‘Why dont you go stay in a hotel or something?’ Yes, we can. But we first have to sort out the boat which has to go onto either a secure mooring or be tied up in a marina. Marinas in this part of the world are a minimum $100 per night, and then you still have to pay for your own hotel…Now some yotties do manage to do a lot of shore stuff: hiking, bussing and biking their way around. But if you have young kids, forget about it. In all honesty, on shimmi we have an endless series of post card impressions of all the places that we have visited, but we have not really penetrated this gold fish bowl very often. Thing is, that even when you do, you are just a tourist, you will always be just a tourist, expect to be treated as such. The irony is that the only places that you get to know really well are the ones where you have to do repairs. I know every single filter, fan belt, volvo spare part and ship chandler shop in Papeete!
Surfing is the same thing. Every time you get to a new surf sport you have to go through the slow and stressful process of staking a minor claim for yourself in the lineup.  And you dont often surf alone! Be friendly, greet all the okes, smile as they paddle around you again and again, even though they are teenagers on boogey boards for f%*ks sakes. After a few sessions you start seeing some of the same faces, you start getting a few bombs, you don’t screw them up so you get a few more. You start to get a feel for when in the day its the least crowded as its often very busy on the dawn patrol. Some locals are friendly, some are just pure assholes. Often the assholes can barely surf. Of all the places I surfed, Teahupoo had the mellowest locals, figure that one out. Some islands, like Raiatea, has a reputation for heavy locals. This usually means that it takes even longer before you get one of the bomb waves. Yes, its awesome to surf all these great waves. But it is stressful too, its not like you are paddling out at your local spot with a few of your mates. I am every inch the outsider. You get dropped in on without so much as a sideways glance. But every now and then, especially when its big and pulsing, you end up in the right place. All the elements come together and WOOOOSH, you get spat out of the craziest pit.
 What makes it all worthwhile: The Crazy Pit
 The postcard view. But where do you anchor? Yacht cruisers like us also often get little more from their ‘dream’ destination than the initial “post card view” of the place. This is the panoramic view you see from the deck of your boat when you approach land after a long crossing. In some cases it can be such an emotional sight that you will be crying like baby. But the more you cruise, the more you realize how hard it is to actually ‘enter’ this new landscape.
Apart from the usual dilemma of finding a good anchorage, a problem worth mentioning is your dingy or tender. It is difficult to land your tender or dingy ashore unless there is a dingy dock, and even if you do, will your dingy still be there when you get back? A busy dingy dock is a mind boggling sight: Up to 30 dingy’s tied up to a single pontoon, the size of two double beds, it looks like a high tech version of ancient Shanghai’s rafted chinese junks, with yotties sometimes having to clamber over 9 or 10 dingy’s before reaching the wharf. And if its a dodgy area, with a few baddies around (as labelled by my 4 year old son Josh), then most of those dingies will be chained and locked to each other and the warf as well. There is nothing worse than getting back with your groceries and then finding that your trusted dingy (which is your only form of commute), has been stolen. Some areas have a reputation for this, and yotties spend much time chatting amongst each other on the topic of places to land a dingy, and how save it may be to leave it unattended when you are ashore.
 Going ashore often means leaving your dingy on the beach. But will it still be there when you get back? Many places have dingy guards, same as our car guards. Some larney marinas wont allow you to use their dingy dock, which can be a real pain.
Lets use an example. Imagine arriving as a foreign surfer on your yacht in Cape Town’s Kommetjie, and the Outer is firing. Where would you anchor? And if you do find a seemingly suitable anchorage, where would you go ashore? Would you be able to leave your dingy on the beach? Would you be able to anchor around there overnight? The answer to all these questions will be a resounding “No!” You will have to keep driving until you get to Hout Bay which is the closest safe haven. But Hout Bay’s bay is not a safe anchorage, so you will have to call up the marina in your VHF, and see if they have a spot for your boat inside the harbour, which will come at an expensive daily rate. Thats if you were lucky enough to have made it from Kommetjie before nightfall. But lets assume you are in the marina, all cosy and tied up. You cant just rush off to find surf. First you have to go through the long and boring task of finding and checkin in with the port authorities, blah blah blah. Obviously by now those firing waves at the Kom, which you saw from the deck of your yacht, are a distant memory.
 The safety of a marina is nice....but as soon as you tie up you loose your only mode of transport...and become a landlubber like everyone else You are on land now, just like the rest of the real world. So you start figuring out where the surf spots are, and the much harder problem of transport. And how happy will your wife and kids be if you leave them behind in a utterly strange and foreign place whilst you aimlessly hunt for surf? According to my scenario you will have the impossible problem of trying to get public transport with your board to the southern peninsula. No, its not easy. Its similar to the logistics faced by a 12 year old grom who lives far from the beach. So what’s your point you may ask??? If you see a foreign yachtie along our shores, putting along on his clapped out rubber ducky, looking for a landing, please go up to the oke and offer him a hand. Take him or her for a surf, show them where the supermarket is, help them to orient themselves. They will be SOOO stoked. And you never know, you may be off on a sunset cruise with your new buds before the week is out.
 Here's three yotties waiting for a lift. The one on the right has been waiting long.
toolsSeptember 26, 2010
 Fresh quiiver and a fresh 'do... Eish I been hacking with my blog for ages now so this is a little round-up of the chaos that has ensued since whenever i last managed to conjure something up, apologies for the quiet times, Roosta’s Chirp is back!
The Frango beach ferals after two months in the tropics I was more then ready to jump in a plane outa East Africa to be a part of the movie Blue Crush2!?! How hilarious as soon as I got confirmation I dialed up Arno at RVCA and said:” Get me a flight outa here I’m in a movie! Haha…”
Anyway I rocked into the Protea hotel at the Gateway feeling righteously feral- neck beard and all only to meet the rest of ‘The surf family’ we all shared a few beers in the larney bar and entered the void of hurry-up-and-wait-ville…
 Rory, Bongani, Dylan, me, Rox and Kai the big guy settling in...  Yeeuw- feels like it never happened... Days turned into weeks and weeks kept turning we all ended up getting on like winos, for some the hurry-up-and-wait-thing just didn’t sit with their 9-5 mentalities… I think that’s why most of us surfers adapted so well. We’d chill hard with full bellies for the whole day playing guitar, drinking coffee, playing hack. Kai the big guy got us all hooked on South Park and the Simpsons again, the girls would shack up in their trailers watching DVD’s it was a hoot! So funny to be on the other side of the lense, a little sad at times when you see how hard they all have to work…we just sit there! Hurry-up-and-wait cant work for everyone!
The funniest part is most of us had like no acting experience whatsoever, some had never even set foot on a movie-set so for some, it was a bit of a baptism of fire. Tt times it actually felt a lot like school- except everyone got on really well, me and Rodger ended up playing so much music together we started The Cowboy and Roosta Sideshow, everytime we rocked into a new town, the first thing we’d do is take over the local pub for a jam, things got serious when we hit Seal Point and took over The Cape St. Francis lifestyle resort- the stage was ours… With the help of local Folk music legend Sam Mieny. We set up his PA and made noise till three in the morning- what a stoker- Suthu aka Chewbacca in the movie ripped it up, Sam gave us a few classics and the rest of us wreaked havoc thanks to everyone for making such an epic evening…
The carnage prevailed until all of a sardine it was time for the Billabong Pro in J-bay, time for the movie peeps to bail, and perfect timing for a week off ! We set-up The Grom Camp below the JBU larnies and for four days the waves kept waving, buckets of Corona on ice flowing, and the Saffa’s were ripping! You guys all know the story- Jordi ripped, Dale Staples and Shaun Joubert represented while Sean Holmes was well, Sean Holmes…
 It was the first time the Billabong has run in four days straight ever- by day four we had claimed our spot!! 
In J-bay Twig hooked me up with a 7’0 and a 9’0- eish! Surfboards of consequence im taking them to Ireland next month on a ‘zag trip with Stix and Jem Johnson…
 pic by Saskia Korner So Winter is waning it’s time to get moving, stay tuned for more blogroll just like old times and don’t forget to remember not to forget: “In all chaos, there is a cosmos,in all disorder a secret order.” Carl Jung
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