Zigzag September 2020 - 44.4

Fear, illness, uncertainty. 2020 has been a hard one. Rugs pulled. Illusions of security shattered. We’ve all had to adjust and learn new ways of doing the old things we took for granted. At the same time, that old magical cosmic seesaw served up one of the finest winters in living memory, from a South African surfing perspective. And surf we did… and continue to do, with renewed enthusiasm. When we look back, 2020 will be a bitter-sweet memory of disruption and weirdness against a backdrop of natural splendour. An experience that pulled us towards ourselves. Surfing has always been an existential pursuit. At its heart, a transformative, transcendental experience. For many, this ugly year has made it clear that surfing matters, at the deepest level. As our working lives ground to a halt…

The Cape Peninsula dangles off the bottom of Africa like a rough fishhook, curling round from the frigid waters of the Atlantic Coast into the broad expanse of False Bay. Ask any local and they’ll tell you this island-like geography has created a plethora of waves, from spitting beach breaks and big wave reefs, to the beginners’ paradise of Muizenberg. Yet despite the abundance of setups, the peninsula is far more famous for its other marine attractions. Since the early 2000s, False Bay has become a world-renowned location for cage diving with great white sharks, or to witness the spectacular breaching phenomenon – where these sharks launch themselves into the air while hunting seals. Less spectacular is encountering one of these leviathans while surfing, which also became a far more common…

I’ve had Wollie for over 16 years now; he grew up on the beach at Supertubes. I trained him so that I could leave him on the beach when I went surfing, but he used to howl like crazy at first. He would follow me along the point, up and down, up and down. He’d come stand on the rocks and cry and cry and cry. People would freak out! I’d come back from a surf and there’d be voicemails on my phone from all kinds of strangers who got my number off his tags and thought I’d abandoned him. Once there was a voicemail from this lady who said, “Your dog’s on the beach and he’s crying! He loves you so much; you will never, ever find a woman who…

Shamali Sanjaya, a confident, 30-year-old mother and surfer from the small Sri Lankan town of Arugam Bay, serves as the president of the country’s first all-female surf club. She leads group meetings, organises beach cleanups and co-ordinates surf trips for the small yet growing group of 17 local women surfers. But just a few years ago, Shamali’s experience as a surfer in Arugam Bay was very different to what it is today. When Shamali learned how to surf about eight years ago, she was the only woman in the lineup. “No girls were surfing in the village at that time,” Shamali says. “My brother is the number one surfer in Sri Lanka and my father is also a good surfer. When my cousin taught me how to surf he said, ‘Shamali,…

It was the first morning of Level 3 and a standoff was looming. On one side, 50 odd surfers whose wax hadn’t hit water in nearly two months. On the other, what looked to be most of the False Bay police force. Nobody – including the police – knew what the new regulations meant for surfing. Was it allowed? Wasn’t it? Government announcements had only raised more questions than answers. My biggest concern was that there was going to be a bust up and that it would solidify the ban on surfing everywhere in South Africa. Muizenberg had already been in the national news multiple times as surfers pushed to get back in the water, and the only upshot had been authorities clamping down harder across the country. Just as things started to…

I grew up on a farm on the outskirts of Cape Town, in the middle of agriculture and wine country. My dad was a vegetable farmer and my mom was a nurse – she was the one who raised me. Everybody in our community played rugby. I was always terrible at it. In my teen years we moved closer to the city and stayed on a small farm in Kuilsriver, where everyone played soccer. I was terrible at that, too! Then, when I was about 16, I made friends with a skateboarder. He worked at Surf Centre, right in the City Bowl, and it was there that my interest in surfing began. Hanging out at the shop we’d go through old magazines and we’d see those pictures of Tahiti with the…