While the Jordy Smith Cape Town Pro presented by O’Neill was battered by a deep low pressure, producing wild winds and 5 meter swells on Friday and Saturday, the storm blew itself out by Sunday. Alas, the ‘Brazilian Storm’ intensified into finals day with Alex Ribeiro, winner of the SA Open in Durban last weekend, snatching back to back victories in South Africa’s two surfing capitals. Zoe McDougall did the same on behalf of Hawaii. The form surfers showing how it’s done over 14 days. While the generally underwhelming performance of the South Africans (Nicole Pallet’s perfect 10 and Josh Faulkner’s Juniors win, notwithstanding, offering a brief glimmer of sunshine on an otherwise rainy weekend for Saffa competitive surfing hopes – to keep this rather tired storm analogy going) will cause further navel-gazing and introspection. And now all attention shifts to Ballito where 10 000 golden Willy Wonka points are up for the taking, followed by the big show, the chocolate factory of dreams aka the Corona Open J-Bay! The hits keep coming. Now kick up your heels and look at the pics…
