Hurricane Alley was living up to its name - the 30kt NNW wind was ricocheting off the cliffs and mini-tornados were swirling clouds of spray across the surface of sea...and I knew that the cameras were out of memory!
Reverse Buffels surfing...
Reverse Buffels
Cape Town is a fabulous place for paddling: in summer the gale-force southeasters blow us from Millers Point to Fish Hoek (or from Milnerton to Melkbos!); in winter the gale-force northwesters blow us from Fish Hoek to Millers Point!
But sometimes the wind veers to the north-north-west and we get the best of winter downwind routes - from Fish Hoek past Millers Point all the way down to Buffels Bay in the Cape Point Nature Reserve.
Sunday's forecast was for 23-31kt NNW in the afternoon - so we agreed to meet at Fish Hoek at 1pm to do the 22km run down to Buffels.
Weather conditions on the day
Fantastic Conditions
As you can see in the video, the conditions were ideal - we were riding fun swells half way to the lighthouse - and from there on they just got bigger and bigger.
Some of the runs seemed to go on forever - you'd sit on the crest for a few moments, then slide down the face, paddle a few strokes, up and over and onto the next crest, scan for the next dip, a couple of strokes and into, and on and on.
Hurricane Alley
Some 5km from Buffels Bay, our route took us past some sheer cliffs just past Smitswinkel Bay.This area is notorious for the gusts of wind that swirl across the sea, lifting sheets of spray off the water.If the northwester has any westerly component in it, the gusts can turn savage, blowing directly (and dangerously) offshore.
Although it looked impressive on Sunday, the wind was blowing in a southerly direction and we simply had to stop paddling whenever the squalls hit - brace, stay in the boat and let it go over.
Unfortunately, by the time we got there, both my cameras were out of memory so I wasn't able to capture Hurricane Alley on video.
The Cameras
We have two of the GoPro Hero3 cameras now.They capture up to about 57 minutes of video, storing it on 2GByte SD cards.
I bought them from Amazon.I also bought the GoPro car mounting kit which comes with a sucker mounting - which you can see on the foredeck in the video.
We've had our helmet cam mounting for quite a while now and although ours is homemade, you can buy a helmet mount kit from GoPro as well.
Using the cameras
I've been trying the mountings in various positions on skis with varying levels of success.Some of the things I've learnt are:
Use high capacity rechargeable batteries (ordinary batteries tend to last only about 30 minutes.
Splash the helmet cam often to clear the lens - on this run the last 30 minutes of footage was useless because of a spot of salt that obscured half the lens. The waves that I didn't film were much bigger than the ones on the clip!
Video is much more interesting with other skis in the frame.
The microphone on the helmet cam works surprising well - capturing wind sounds as well as spoken commentary (although viewers might argue whether that's a good thing!)
There's a new version of the camera due out shortly that has a wide angle lens which will not only (obviously) increase the field of vision, but will have the effect of image stabilization - I can't wait.
Rambo is a crazy Australian outrigger canoe paddler who has been working with these and other cameras for a lot longer than me.He's become such an expert that GoPro send him their prototypes to test - I believe he's testing the wide angle Hero as I write this.
Rambo's launching a ‘how-to' blog aimed at helping folks get the best out of their GoPro cameras - check it out.
Great Stuff! written by Kenneth Moore,
September 11, 2008
Thanks Rob, looks like you had a fantastic ride. Us Hawaiian paddlers will have to do a Hawaii Kai / Diamond Head / Kaimana Beach video - 8 miles of pure downwind flying the next time the trades are pumping. Keep up the fun video Ken Moore
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synergy versus epic sport written by Tony Hackland,
September 11, 2008
greetings from oz rob, great video.....how does this new synergy compare with the epic sport in terms of stability & speed, in your opinion. from a stability perspective i look forward to an intermediate ski between epic v10 & epic sport!!
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... written by Dean Jordaan,
September 11, 2008
Awesome footage Rob, it makes me stoked and depressed (being far from the sea).
How about putting Dawid or Oscar in your rig and producing an instructional video - commentary and footage combined! Imagine how happy Oscar will be to paddle and talk at the same time.
What I really like to see is a day with massive swells behind you captured by the nose cam.
cheers Dean
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... written by Tom Balaam,
September 11, 2008
Hi Rob
I've said it before you guys are having way to much fun out there, enjoy it wish I was out there. Tom B
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... written by Rob Mousley,
September 11, 2008
How about putting Dawid or Oscar in your rig and producing an instructional video - commentary and footage combined!
Yep - that's the idea! Stay tuned!
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... written by thebigadski,
September 11, 2008
Fantastic idea Dean......I'll be waiting for the footage that's for sure!
Rob, a question on the gopro, is it vista compatible? I've seen one on the net for $120Aus (I think it may not be the hero3, just the hero???) Any idea on the differences?
Cheers Adam
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Vista? written by RoJo,
September 11, 2008
Hi Adam, I have a Gopro Hero3 and it works with Vista. If you reomve the card for downloading and use a seperate card reader it is no problem at all. The driver and cable that come with the camera work also but are awkwardly slow for downloading larger amounts of data. The Hero is different to the Hero3. I don't know exactly but I think resolution and quality were much lower on the older model. when I shopped for my camera it was obvious that the older model was not the one to buy, even if the price looks good.
Can anyone recommend some freeware for simple editing of videos?
Cheers, Rolf
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Vista/video editors written by Rob Mousley,
September 11, 2008
The interface between camera and PC is via the USB port - so there is no problem with the operating system.
I use Pinnacle Studio 12 for video editing. It's pretty inexpensive but it's very easy to use and works well both on my laptop and on my desktop machines.
In the past I used the Microsoft Moviemaker package that comes with Windows and it did a reasonable job. I tried Movavi VideoSuite, even purchasing a license (very inexpensive - $50 maybe?) but it barfed on large file sizes.
The GoPro tends to generate files of just under 2gigabytes - which is really small for a 57min clip. Nevertheless, once you start messing with video, you need BIG disk drives!
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Oscar? written by vlei rat,
September 11, 2008
Isn't that Oscar in the red vest paddling the honeycomb epic? If not the resemblence is uncanny.
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Oscar? written by Rob Mousley,
September 11, 2008
Dunno, some say it answers to the name of Justine...
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what a ride! cheers written by Susan Kong,
September 11, 2008
Hey Rob, thanks heaps for the ride. It's addictive ! Thoroughly enjoyed it especially as I haven't quite felt ready for the 20-30kts. Generally it's the fear of the unknown but with the video footage, it ain't looking so scary after all.. so, think I'll be chasing that surf and wave, sooner than I thought.
Cheers
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It's BIGGER than it looks! written by Kenneth Moore,
September 11, 2008
Careful Susan! Swells (and mountains) often look much smaller on film and video than we experience, often to the chagrin of the storyteller when the video is played back. Landscape photographers often use special cameras with tilting backs to give the picture the proper perspective - not possible with video (unless there is a software package that could digitally compensate - anyone know of any?) In Hawaii, we just don't look back. It's distracting and scary. Oscar says "just go for the hole in front of you" and that seems to work for me. Aloha! Ken
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First time... written by Rob Mousley,
September 12, 2008
Hey Susan - just make sure you've got plenty of support the first few times! As Ken says, it is a bit deceptive on the clip - the camera flattens everything out.
And when you do it, the thing to remember is that you need to be moving faster than the waves - when they start moving faster than you, it can become very uncomfortable and unnerving.
So you have to be assertive and ready to accelerate. I've seen many "first timers" feel tentative when the back of the boat lifts, then they stop paddling which is the worst thing to do - the ski wallows, the wave roars past and the paddler feels more and more unstable and unhappy.
But when you get it right - it's the most exhilarating form of paddling that there is - and it's what sets us apart from every other kind of paddling. No other craft can ride waves for as long and as efficiently as surfskis can...
Go for it!
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Bring on that review! written by Craig van Heerden,
September 18, 2008
Hey Rob, how is that review of the Synergy going? I think the review is going to make interesting reading, especially after considering the craaaazy downwinds you have taken it out in recently. No pressure
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