South Africa update

I guess waiting at the airport for a stop over is one of these perfect moment to write a blog post! Still full of all sweet memories and without anything else to do than waiting anyway, and without internet connection to get distracted on the internet ;). I’m in Addis Abbaba in Ethiopia, waiting for my next flight to get me back to Holland after spending five weeks in beautiful South Africa.

It has been such a great trip again. It sounds cheesy but every year I come back to Cape Town I fall in love more and more with this place. Packed with freestyle, wave and SUP gear I was pretty much covered for a session in the water every day. A bit of a hassle to travel with so much stuff – my luggage all together weighted a bit over 120 kg’s – but it was definitely worth it all!

Every day in CT is different and it all depends on the wind, swell and wind direction where it’s best to sail that particular day. I must admit, for me this is probably the worst part about CT. People who know me well, know how bad I am in making decisions.. and this is exactly what I had to do every single day again 😉

Waking up in the morning, making myself some good breakfast and checking out the forecasts for that day and according to this making a plan where to go wave sailing / SUP / surf or freestyle that day! Guess it was pretty good for me though, good training to make choices every day 😉 And to be honest, most mornings I was cheating a bit because luckily I had a lot of friends who knew exactly where to go with every type of forecast who wrote me in the morning where they would go. and in the end, I guess it’s also one of the reasons why I do love Cape Town so much, having so many different conditions and spots to choose from made every day different and interesting!

checking out the conditions with the guys

I arrived in Cape Town in the beginning of February. Pretty late as most people heading there already in December or January for the windy season but I had to recover from a broken hand in December. But it all looked good with the check up beginning of February so two hours later my tickets for Cape Town were booked. I am flying with Ethiopian Airlines, never heard of them before but because I booked so last minute all other flights were too expensive or not available anymore. As always with flying with an unknown airline I was a bit worried for the amount of money they would charge me for my windsurf gear but it all worked out pretty good luckily.

It was so nice seeing so many friends from all over the world again, so many windsurfers come to CT around this time of year that my first week was pretty much every day covered with catching up coffee’s  – lunch and dinners but luckily the exchange rate was pretty good this year which made it all not too expensive 😉

In my first week I was there I heard about a Pilates Instructor Course from a friend of mine, Valerie and I decided very last moment to do the course. It was very interesting to learn a lot about anatomy, specific postures and body movements. I think sports like yoga and pilates complement very well with windsurfing as it tightens a lot of muscles that you use over and over again and I felt very happy to learn more about this all.

OK, time to talk about the windsurfing itself for a bit – because it was the first time I was sailing with all my new North / Fanatic gear!!!! I brought  three HERO wave sails:  3.7 / 4.2 / 4.5 and a 69 liter quad wave board and for freestyle  4.0 / 4.4 and 4.8 IDOL sails and a 86 fanatic SKATE. The gear is so light and I was surprised not even really having to get used to it, I felt comfortable straight away with it.

Last session of the trip – Big Bay session. Picture by Filip the Meester

I never did a lot of wave sailing before, whenever I had a wave session I was mainly going for jumping. I think this trip made me finally realize why so many people love wave riding…it’s just an amazing and addictive feeling! Port tack wave sailing is not my good side and I sometimes felt like such a beginner in the water. But gradually I think I started to improve and definitely got a better understanding of the waves.

This year I didn’t get as many jump sessions in as I was hoping for, but two days ago it was windy in Sunset and I managed to have my first attempts of a stalled forward and even landed some small ones!

Although I mainly wanted to focus on waves I scored some nice freestyle sessions. When the waves and wind were not working, a lot of time there is still wind somewhere at one of the pretty lakes if you drive a bit. Bringing my freestyle gear as well made it possible to sail almost every single day.

KFC jumping session overpowered with 3.7 HERO. Picture by Nina

Freestyle session at Brand Vlei. Pic by Adam Sims

However the waves has been great and most of my mornings started with a SUP session with some friends somewhere, depending on the tide and the size of waves. I got hooked to SUP already in Jeri but even more so in CT. Still have a lot to learn and I got punished by some waves lots of times but feeling you are improving is one of the best motivators and being able to ride a big wave was such a sick feeling! I really think doing so much Stand Up Paddle helped me a lot with getting a better feeling for the waves with wave riding as well, it’s all about timing and understanding the waves and the more time I spend in the water, the more I start to get the timing right 😉

Stand Up Paddle session at Derde Steen. Pic by Julian Wiemar

CT is too interesting to just focus on windsurfing, so besides being on the water I had some great days doing sightseeing, climbing Table Mountain and Lyons Head (which was a challenge with me being scared of heights, thanks to you for pushing me guys ;)) going to town for amazing food and some drinks and much much more.

On top of Table Mountain. Pic by Flo Ragossnig

But in the end, what made this trip unforgettable again was being able to share all those moments in and off the water with amazing people. Old friends and new friends I made, thank you all so much and hope to see you again somewhere in the world 🙂

Sunset evening session. Pic by Rochus Hartmann