Race Report

“I had two or three extended, paddles-down, ‘whooosah!’ moments”, said race director Garth Spencer, “and I pulled a few cheeky chakas for the camera crew on the media boat…

“…but those failed to show up in the photos, so there’s no proof, haha!”

The wave reared up, curling over and dumping over the ski, stopping me dead in my tracks; the other two surged past and I thought, “will that bloody buoy EVER get any closer?!”

Durban -The mixed doubles crew of Luke Nisbet and Jenna Ward stole the limelight at the HiQ Surfski Challenge on Friday night, as the penultimate leg of the popular FNB Surfski Series had to be modified to suit the heavy cyclone surf conditions in Durban Bay.

"That was… the best fun I've had in years," said Dawid Mocke as he watched the rest of the paddlers riding the surf into the beach. "It doesn't matter who you are, you're all in with an equal chance."

As he followed Jasper Mocke inside the rocks at Cape Point, 22-year-old Kenny Rice glanced back, looking for race favourite and defending champion Hank McGregor.  He was nowhere to be seen.  “Game on!” Rice thought to himself.  “Hurt the guys NOW!”

An hour into the first leg of the world's longest, toughest ocean kayak race, dorsal fins appeared one by one, then in a flurry until they surrounded us like a shiny gray gang of skinheads emerging from a dark alley. Only a rube from Brooklyn or a paranoid fool would have thought shaaaark -- these mischievous mammals had Flipper written all over them. I've paddled with dolphins in Florida and Hawaii and New Jersey, but I'd never seen so many, so close, or for so long. They were as cheeky as subway mashers and so large that they actually put out a fat wash.