Magic paddle last night from Fish Hoek...

I'd rushed down to the beach, expecting to have a hard slog on the "circuit" from Fish Hoek via Simonstown harbour to Ark Rock to Roman Rock and back to Fish Hoek.

This is a good training paddle, but not my idea of "fun" - more like hard work!

The guys were already getting on the water when I arrived and by the time I'd changed, ripped the boat off the car &

It's funny how the best downwind runs are often not the ones where you're battling gigantic waves in gale force winds...

(Although my two "gale-force" paddles this season were both near the top in terms of fun...)

Endorfin-starvation

 I've had family from overseas staying with us for the last three weeks and some more have just arrived.  (My cousin has an artificial knee which seems to have

How hard do you push before it's too far?

We did a really hairy Buffels Run today. 

The wind was blowing hard, in excess of 30kts at Roman Rock, but wind that strength is not normally an issue - in fact a Millers Run is hardly worth it if the wind isn't blowing that hard.

What was different today was the swell - it was coming in from the SE so, although it wasn't forecast to be very big (8.5-11ft

Saturday 19th January 2008 

I called Dawid Mocke: "It's gusting 45kt right now at Roman Rock," I said.  "Great!" he said, "have fun!  (Why are you are calling me?)"

"Well, I want to know if it's sensible to go out in wind that strong," I said.

"Of course, it'll be a jol!  Who are you going with?"

"Jean Austin, from East London."

"Oh he'll be fine.  Go for it!"

When I first started doing Millers Runs,

What a weekend - three Millers Runs in three days...  two on the Red7 Surf70 Pro and one on the V10Sport Ultra...

The Theory

Friday's effort was the smallest - 10-15kts with small waves, but perfect for practicing "crest riding", the technique shown me before Christmas during a fascinating session with Oscar Chalupsky.  He'd first coached me on the waves, mostly telling me to stop paddling early

Had a great paddle last night with Dawid Mocke & a couple of other stalwarts: from Buffels Bay to Fish Hoek in a 30-38kt southeaster (according to the weather station at Roman Rock). Of course when I say "with Dawid Mocke", we didn't exactly paddle with him - more accurate to say that we saw him on the ramp at Buffels and then again at the Fish Hoek SLS Club where he'd arrived, showered,

2007 was a fun year for us. 

• We pioneered live coverage with the Molokai challenge in May and by the end of the year were doing it as a matter of course for all the big races.
• We were invited by the organisers of the Dubai Shamaal race to go to Dubai to cover the race - we worked hard and blew the site ten minutes after the race ended - our ISP pulled the plug on us because so many people were

Welcome to Surfski.info's blogs...

Hmm...  I have no idea where this will go or how other people will see it.

Cape Point Challenge

The CPC is in two day's time on 22 December 2007.  Am I ready? Difficult to tell.  I'm nervous to be honest.  I'd done a fair amount of training a couple of months back, but what with trips to Dubai, pressure at work and time taken out to run surfski.info, I'm not sure