Zigzag

Cyclone Batsirai inspired some strange and unusual corners of KZN to do their best impression of a more famous tropical reef break. Justin Sykes slips into the shade at this rare and short-lived wonder. ■

Odd Grimm Persson is a funny-sounding name, in our language; but in his native Swedish tongue it means ‘the tip of the arrow’. He was raised in a tiny village on the Baltic sea, where the only waves are the ones that come at night, with ferocious win

After an indifferent run in Hawaii, Slade Prestwich demolished the field at the Ballito Pro before losing to Jordy Smith by the slimmest of margins. Then he spent the rest of the winter hunting waves like this in Portugal. ■

Let’s start with a hypothetical fish – say, a white steenbras. She pops out of an egg just offshore of the Groot Berg Estuary, on the Cape West Coast. Miraculously, she isn’t eaten during the few weeks until she tastes fresh water and heads for the m

I really dug the authenticity of the event. It wasn’t fake, it wasn’t forced, it just naturally fell into place, from the time the sun rose till we crawled into bed. We kicked off with a little beach clean-up. The sounds of African funk on an old tur

I bought a house in Hawaii for a few reasons. Firstly, the place is just incredible. There aren’t too many surf spots like this in the world, and it’s US soil so it’s a pretty safe investment. Secondly, I felt my weakness was backside heavy tube wave

When I was a little kid, my dad took me to a bookstore during a family holiday in the south-west of France. In the corner of the shop I found my first surf and bodyboard mag. Once it was opened, I couldn't close it! I showed one image to my dad and t

In my youth, for my friends and me at the Bay of Plenty in Durban, Hawaii was the red-hot centre of the surfing universe. Hawaii was our Valhalla, a mythic place where surfing gods actually lived and went to battle on the hallowed waves of Sunset Bea

The Banzai Pipeline is the yardstick by which we measure any hard, barrelling left. Through all the years in or out the water, how many times have you heard, “Yoh! That wave looks like Pipe!”? It’s been ingrained in us through years of seeing images

One sunny afternoon in Port Elizabeth in 1994, after a surf competition, I was travelling home with contest organiser Arno Lane when we got T-boned by a taxi which was moving at some serious speed. The taxi hit my side, smashing my door and me straig

If your dream is to surf solo on barrelling reef breaks looking out over a palm-tree-lined island, with the only transport being by foot, then you’ve found what you’re looking for. Sozinhos Surf Lodge, owned and run by a South African, is located on

“Lo siento… you cannot take your surfboard on the plane.” With the exception of “adopt the brace position”, these are the most terrifying words anyone on a surf trip involving long-haul flights can hear. I had already brought my board on Turkish Airw

The Ohlanga is not a big river. It runs just 27km from its source to where it enters the Indian Ocean, at the nudie beach between the upmarket suburbs of Umdloti and Umhlanga – a stretch of beach the city’s surfers know well. The river does a 27km to

Sad news from Hong Kong: relocated Kalk Bay local John Stephenson passed away recently. By all accounts he was a special kind of human. As his long-time friend and Hong Kong surf wingman Daniel Beatty said, “I will miss your eternal positivity that k

Starting on a Monday morning I scour the many WhatsApp groups that I’m a member of, eavesdropping on where waves were found, missed, or may soon appear. Between all the memes and banter there’s chat about all-time sessions and skunk missions, which h

While older brother Luke toils for his moment of glory on the Rock, younger brother Connor Slijpen slips into the limelight at Llandudno. ■

Eight metres at 16 seconds, straight out of the west into a strong southerly wind. The middle of Summer. Photographer Ant Fox climbed the mountain for this bird’s-eye view of the freakshow. ■