I’m not much of a tourist. Spending 2 months in Cape Town I only went on 3 hikes and wine tasting once. However, I did drive 7000km to windsurf and occasionally sup-surf 16 different spots. To give you an idea here is a map where I marked all the spots we windsurfed with a red star. The green stars are where we surfed.
We did all types of windsurfing, mostly jumping on the ocean and freestyling on the lakes, but we even squeezed in some superX (racing with obstacles, duck jibes, loops and spocks) and wave riding.
There were a few windless days, but they were very much welcome as we changed gears to surf or play tennis and squeeze in those touristy activities.
Were there sharks lurking around? I didn’t see any, but supposedly a spot we sailed called Fish Hoek is about as sharky as it gets. We parked next to the shark warning system sign. Nobody was in the water, but the wind, waves, and more importantly grassy rigging made us forget the flag system altogether. Later we realized we were being neither brave nor foolish, as mid way through our session a paddling club joined us in the water. About 50 young paddlers on kayaks and paddle boards were busy getting flipped and tossed around by the waves. They looked like shark bait to me… Luckily our Great White friends didn’t notice either of us. We shared the bay and the young paddlers were stoked to have us jumping and ripping by them.
Some other close wildlife encounters I had were nearly crashing with a seal while surfing, having about 10 ostriches cross the road on a drive from Kraalbai to Langebaan, and seeing an Orca whale in Langebaan.
Going through my phone pictures now it’s obvious to me that I was clearly impressed by the scenery around Cape Town – or maybe it was the panorama feature on my phone’s camera which impressed me. Either way, I’ll share some of the pictures with you. As amazed as you may be with my panorama photo skills, please keep in mind that these photos don’t do the scenery justice.
Now I’m home in Canada getting a few things organized before the next trip to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in 2 weeks time. I’ll be hosting a 4 day freestyle clinic there, so contact me if you want to sign up! I’ll also be racing as part of the OBX-Wind event, long distance and slalom. Oh I can’t wait to get on the slalom gear again!
