Costa Rica is our dream surf trip destination. But we would take Maldives, Bali, Hawaii, Long Island or even Mauritius if you threw it at us. But you didn’t, so we gathered our battered Rands and set off for Melkbosstrand instead. We left after work on a Friday, so we missed the traffic. The journey from our home in the South to…
Tag: Cape Town
Spike’s Winter Swell Course-my review
If you let go the fear, the fear let’s go of you So said the surfer I passed on my first grim and terrified march down to the waterline at Muizenberg. Easier said than done, you Crusty Old Salt. But since knowledge is power, (And I already got a handle on the shark side of things HERE ) I decided to enroll in Spike’s Winter…
Ten Things I learned from Shark MOOC
I am so stoked that I learned such awesome stuff in this little thing called a MOOC. Confession: Despite being enrolled in the MOOC I had to Google what exactly the acronym stands for…wait for it… Massive Open Online Course I completed Sharks! Global Diversity, Biology and Conservation with Cornell University and the University of Queensland on the EdX platform…
The Kook Diaries Part 3: Paddle Outs and Pop Ups.
I choose to Stand Up Paddle because of the paddle, really. I prefer going into battle upright, with a weapon. So when they (they = Tarryn + Tyran @ XOTB) decreed that we were going out on surfboards (it was too windy to SUP), my heart sank a little. I have never surfed a surfboard before because of the paddle out. (At…
Finding her balance – the journey of a SUP mama
One of the first things you learn when you get on a stand up paddle board is to bring your big girl panties. It’s not for the fainthearted. The second is to learn to balance. You start with a wide board, a wide stance, some flat water and a fully engaged core. With a little ocean knowledge, courage grows and with…
Going Pear Shape
One of the things I have had to come to terms with since I started stand up paddle boarding is my love/hate relationship with wetsuits. The LOVE part is easy. My winter wetsuit is the only thing between my peaches and cream and the cold Benguela current, which churns it’s way up from Antarctica without any deflection, straight into Cape Town. The…
The shark thing.
There isn’t a day I paddle out into False Bay that I don’t think about sharks. I have seen the aerial photos. I have watched the National Geographic documentaries. I know the sharks are there. Great Whites. Bronze Whalers, Raggies. But mostly Great White sharks. On a clear day you can see Seal Island, their hunting ground, from Baden Powell…
