Jul 22, 2009
Author: Reo Stevens, Greg Ewing photos
“Durban’s where you want to go, that’s where it’s good, Cape Town is beautiful, but the kiting is in Durban.”
Most ideas, good or bad, seem to come up after a few beers with a few good friends. This idea was no different. It started somewhere around the halfway point of Richard Sills’ four-and-a-half-month-long stay on the North Shore of Oahu. I found myself sitting in the local bar with Richard and a few other South Africans, struggling keep up with the drink count as well as the conversation. I seemed to understand the words coming out of their mouths, but the many of the ideas were definitely lost in translation.
I ended up sitting quietly, steadily drinking my beer as I listened to the conversations. They would vary from the typical exaggerations of how good each other’s rides were that day, to the inevitable “sepo” vs. the rest of the world argument that we all love and hate. The talk randomly strayed again when all of a sudden and moving in sync like a pack of meerkats, they all looked at me and said: “Hey, we need to get you to South Africa, you’ll love it!”
South Africa has always been a place I wanted to visit, but I never really thought of it as a kitesurfing destination that was right for me. I have heard long and lengthy tales of Cape Town’s wind and waves, and how the world’s best freestylers like Kevin Langeree, Ruben Lenten and Aaron Hadlow spend months training there in the off-season. But the idea of 40-knot winds and ice-cold water never tempted me enough to fly the 30-some hours to get there. As I start to express my contempt toward cold water, I’m quickly interrupted with, “Durban, Bru, Durban’s where you want to go, that’s where it’s good, Cape Town is beautiful, but the kiting is in Durban.” I must admit that I was relatively ignorant about this part of the world and was intrigued about the possibility of somewhere new to kite and visit. Legitimately interested, I began with my usual inquires, “How are the waves? What wind direction is it? When is it good?” As well as an assortment of non-kite related questions such as, “How much? And what else is there?” Many of the questions were answered with little to no surprise, but one answer had me puzzled. “The wind can blow whatever direction you want.” Durban is not only home to great beach breaks, but also has a unique wind pattern. There is no prominent wind direction; each day is unique. One day you could find yourself riding lefts and the next riding rights, each direction as good as the last. With over 20 kilometers of unobstructed coastline as crooked as an $11 bill and countless beach breaks, Durban offers just as much variety and quality as a buffet at a five-star hotel. From going left, to going right, barreling slabs to pushy shoulders, onshore, side-shore, to offshore; Durban offers the true “one place fits all” conditions for any rider.
After that night a rough plan was set, Richard’s four-and-a-half-month-long stay would come to an end along with my school semester and this seemed like a worthy plan to fill the fast approaching summertime doldrums.
After three layovers and 30 hours of flying from Hawaii, I finally find myself curbside at the Durban International Airport. I sit there like a lost puppy hoping that Richard happened to check his e-mail sometime in the past few days so he knew that I was coming and to pick me up. Sadly, this is not so and after about an hour I realize he likely isn’t coming and I start to scratch through my bags looking for the obscure little piece of paper that I wrote Grant “Twiggy” Baker’s phone number on. I finally find the number crumpled in my backpack deep in the pocket that I never use. I eventually find a phone on the other side of the airport and buy an obscenely overpriced useless souvenir to get some change to make a phone call. I call Twiggy, who is my only hope at this point, only to be devastated to find out that he is in Jeffrey’s Bay for the WCT contest. He still tries to help me out, however. “Don’t worry Bru,” he says. “My girlfriend Kate is there, I’ll call her, she’ll help you out, here’s her number. Call her in five and it’ll all be good by then.” I give it a few minutes and call Kate, “Hey Reo, I found Sills, he’s at the beach and is on his way to get you.” Saved! Ten minutes later, Sills races up with a big smile and a surprised look on his face. “How’d you get here so fast?” he asks me. “I just got in this morning and I left two days before you. I never had a chance to even see if you were coming, wad a shocker! Well, let me make it up to you, the boys are at Billy’s bar, I hope you’re thirsty.”
We make our way into the local bar where Richard is nothing short of the local hero partly mixed with the court jester. Everyone knows him and they are all completely entertained with his stories of the road. It takes us a half hour just to make it in the door because he couldn’t seem to take two steps without running into someone screaming, “Sillsy, you’re back!” and bombarding him with questions of his recent adventures. By the time we made our way in through the front door I felt like I’d met half of Durban and felt like I was from there myself. As we make it up to the bar, a seat instantly cleared for Richard as if it had his named carved into the backrest and without notice, an ice cold Marzen Gold was placed in front of it. The king was home and his throne was set. A few hours and many meet-and-greets later, the 12-hour jet lag was catching up and I found myself turning into a narcoleptic walking around Billy’s randomly falling asleep standing up. I discover Richard feeling the same effects and he agrees it’s time to go home. “Good night’s rest and we’ll find some wind and waves in the morning.”
The next morning I wake up after a 15-hour catch-up sleep to find that Richard was cursed with a 2 a.m. wake up due to the jet lag. He starts to fill me in on what he’s been up to for the past eight hours and starts quoting scenes from the latest Harold & Kumar movie that he just watched. I quickly try and change the subject after the “burnt asshole” joke and ask about the conditions. He seems to have an entire plan figured out and fills me in on where we’re going to check first and if that’s no good, where we’ll check next. He seemed to have a backup to the backup plan, obviously having a productive sleepless night. What followed was a “welcome to Durban session” offering up some of the best beach break kitesurfing waves I’ve ever had. The surf was overhead, the wind was blowing sideshore out of the left and there was not another kiter in sight. I end the session coming to the conclusion that it doesn’t get much better than this. On the ride home I can’t stop thanking Richard for talking me into coming down, and he simply replied with a smile and a long list of more things to do. “Wait till we do a downwinder, it’s like a 20-kilometre wave, or wait till the wind blows the other way, there’s another spot that is even better, or wait till we take you for a bunny chow. That’s even better.” I am a little overwhelmed, but hey, if there’s more I’ll take it.
While Richard and I were reaping the benefits of the wind and swell with solo sessions, Twiggy found himself heading down to Cape Town to be on hold for the Red Bull Big Wave Africa contest. The BWA is a big wave paddle-in competition that is held at a local wave called Dungeons, which is not for the faint of heart. It is a very large, shifty, extremely cold-water wave that requires an hour hike and long paddle with a lot of big fish swimming around that would love to eat you. Sounds perfect for a best of the best big wave contest huh? A large swell was forecasted and Richard was scheduled to commentate for the online webcast of the contest. Since we already had a few really good kite days and light wind in the forecast, Cape Town seemed like a good option. We quickly booked our tickets for the two-hour flight south to meet up with some of the big wave legends from around world. We arrived the next morning to a swell that seemed to be living up to all expectations, resulting in one of the most exciting shows I’ve ever seen. I somehow squeaked my way onto one of the boats and got to watch the majority of the contest a few hundred feet away from the channel. As we got closer to the lineup the size of the surf was hard to judge, but one thing was for sure: it was huge. It was so big that the waves seemed like they were breaking in slow motion. The conditions were perfect. The surf picked up as the day went on, leaving the surfers scrabbling for the channel at least once a heat. During one of the heats a set came through that caught all six surfers like a massive avalanche, leaving four of them with broken boards in its wake. As the day went on, I saw one spectacular ride after another. Twiggy used his local knowledge and go-for-it attitude to make his way to the final, eventually winning the contest by catching what he called “one of the biggest fucking waves I’ve ever paddled into.”
Two days later we find ourselves on a plane back to Durban. There was still surf and a mix of wind directions in the forecast. Twiggy was chomping at the bit to get back and get some waves on a kite. He seemed to still be riding the high of winning the contest and a few bottles of Patron from the night before and couldn’t wait to get back onto the water. We returned to overhead surf and wind blowing from the right. We got the first session with the all three of us out. I found it funny that two days prior, Twiggy was riding a different class of conditions than what we were riding that day, let alone a different sport altogether. Nonetheless, he seemed to fall right back into the groove and showed us a new spot and some of the first backside riding I’d seen this trip. With the trip coming closer to an end, I still hadn’t seen the wind switch direction. I was beginning to think that the multiple direction wind was a bit of an exaggeration, but the very next day when I woke up there was something different. That morning when we went for a surf check with our coffee cups in hand Sills said, “Look there, see that? Were gonna go right today.” A few hours later we showed up to the same spot Richard and I kited a week previous and for lack of a better description, everything was the same, but different. The point break on the other end of the beach cleaned up, the wind was blowing out of the other direction and it had become a whole new playground.
In the few days that followed, I got filled in on the variety of conditions that Durban had to offer. Truthfully, two and half weeks was not enough to see and do everything. The kiting is good enough to make you want to kite everyday, braais (barbecues) with more meat than you could ever eat (one had a whole lamb for 15 people) combined with the allure of long nights with good people call for the occasional rest. I left wondering why I was leaving, the wind and waves were still up, my place to stay was still open, and I still had things to see and do, but I was catching a plane to Indonesia and the memories I had of the year before were keeping me from changing my schedule, so it didn’t seem all bad. It was a great time and more to do is just a reason to go back.
Spot Check
Closest Airport: DUR
Best Winds: August, September, October
Best Surf: April, May, June
Average Kite Size: 7, might need a 5
Cost Factor: Low, Med, High—low but if you want to live like rockstar Twiggy it could be high!
Local Tourism website: www.kzn.org.za, www.durban.co.za
Local Shops: cyclonekiteboarding.com, ocean2air.co.za
Wind and Surf forecast resources: windguru.com is usually spot-on for Durban.
|
