King Spike

After my recent "observation" about the loss of the free webcam service, I thought it would be worth reminding everyone about the amazing surf information service that has been provided by Spike for umpteen years now.

Spike's thrice-weekly email surf report is eagerly awaited by many, and in my opinion, its getting consistently better and better. What is particularly cool is how accurate his associated weather reports are, in particular, the prospects for tolerable wind conditions.

Recent case in point - Sunday 22 Jan. Spike predicted a windy day, but said it would die out in the late afternoon. He also predicted a decent sized swell.

"I'm going surfing this afternoon", I told everyone. "No way" they all said, "this wind is going nowhere."

"Spike said it go away", said I, confidently.

And true enough, come 6pm, a fantastic sunset surf was enjoyed by myself, and what I can only presume were about 50 other Spike readers (Derdes was amazingly full, considering the wind that had been pumping just an hour earlier)

Check out Spike's website (and email subscription service) here

End of an Era

Should you click on the link on the right to get to the Big Bay webcam, you'll have noticed that it now only provides a 12 hour delayed feed, with the live picture requiring a subscription (or you can get images via premium mms messages on your cell phone).

One can't dispute with their right to charge for what must be an expensive setup to run, but the cost for me is a bit steep. It was a great service while it was free, and one that will be sorely missed.

Summer and Surfing?

It's a regular bitch, but summer is a bad time for surfing the west coast of Cape Town. The howling south-easter that makes it one of the premier windsurfing and kitesurfing locations in the world, makes for grim surfing. Days with swell and no wind are rare indeed, and all the sweeter when they do happen. I enjoyed an epic pulse recently - didn't last long, however - the wind came up and that, together with the damn northbound current, meant an all too brief moment of fun in the sun.

The good part was that the sands have shifted at Derdesteen again, and as of this moment (Dec 05/Jan 06), the waves are breaking nicely. The latter part of winter and the early part of summer Derdesteen was a place to avoid, what with waves barely forming and nothing to surf except a violent break 2 yards from the shore!