Miller's Run

“Hey, Rob! Help!” The shouts penetrated the sound of the howling wind and crashing waves – and even through the noise it was obvious from the tone of his voice that something was seriously wrong. I turned and headed back upwind.

“Oh, dear me,” I thought. Or words to that effect. Rumbly Bay (encouragingly named for the way the boulders crash together when big swells hit the shoreline) hardly ever closes out – but the wave that was roaring towards me looked as though it just might break across the entire mouth of the bay...

Yeeeeeha! A couple of strokes and the ski started accelerating, 16kph, 20kph, 26kph… Whooomph! The spray deflector threw a mass of water arcing into air… Blinded, unbalanced, keep it going, paddle, paddle…!

"Wow!"  "That's incredible!"

So we were paddling the "Reverse Miller's Run" in Cape Town; that's just like the summer Miller's Run that we do in the southeaster in summer, only we do the reverse in winter when the prevailing northwester blows!  We'd been enjoying the clean offshore runs for a km or two when suddenly the sky lit up with a complete rainbow...  breathtakingly beautiful.

Conditions looked pretty good: South South East wind blowing 27-33kt and no big swell.  

But when we started the runs were so small, and somewhat messy that it didn't look like being a Personal Best kind of day, and I figured that I'd just take it easy and enjoy catching and working the runs as much as possible.

And that's what I was doing - my heart rate was low, I was focussed on using minimum effort to stay on the runs when...  one of my paddling buddies, Jono Niemann, came storming past as we approached the lighthouse on Roman Rock.

Jono and I have had dices before - most recently on the day a few weeks ago when I achieved my best time ever for the Miller's Run... On that occasion we'd been blasting along together when he disappeared just before Fish Hoek.  Turned out that he too was closing in on a record time, when he fell out of his boat.  He was very bleak!

In the video you can see that my heart rate (and breathing!) escalate drammatically as he comes past!  I slowed briefly to capture him on video coming past the lighthouse, but after that it was no-holds-barred!

I didn't capture it but as we came into Fish Hoek, I was just ahead... but he put a sequence together at Sunny Cove and blew past me again, so I think the honours went to him - although he peeled off to the right to land at Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club about 100m further up the beach.

But what a day.  That was my 126th Miller's Run since January last year - and it never gets boring.

"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."

21 Feb, 2018 - Yeeeeha!  I turned towards the whoop to see Jono Niemann came shooting past, spray flying…  The back of my ski lifted and I took a couple of hard strokes to accelerate onto my own wave…

When we met in Fish Hoek to load the surfskis onto the Miller’s Run Taxi, it was to find a veritable sandstorm; the weather station at the club said the wind strength was averaging 30kt, gusting 40kt.  Twenty minutes earlier, it had peaked at around 48kt…

Wind strength reported at Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club We were on the water at about 16h45.

As we drove up to Miller’s Point, the sea looked wild – but in a good way; the swell wasn’t outrageously big and you could see the sets moving in lines.   In the bus, mentions of “Looking good” and “Personal Best” started to be heard.

At Miller’s Point, conditions were perfect.  As usual, the wind wasn’t as strong here – but it was still strong enough that we’d be catching good runs right from the start.

The beauty of paddling in a very strong wind is that you can push over waves that normally stop you – so you can maintain speed and create longer sequences at higher speeds than normal.

Mocke Miller’s Run of the Season

I was delighted when the competition was announced: register as many runs as possible between the beginning of November and the end of February.  Prizes for the fastest runs in each gender and age category; for the most runs; for the best video… 

The Miller’s Run (can anyone not know this?!) is a short, 11.6km-11.8km – depending on where you finish – downwind run from Miller’s Point to Fish Hoek, here in Cape Town.  Whenever the southeaster blows (and that’s probably 2 out of every 3 days in summer) the Miller’s Run beckons.

When we got together for this particular run it was in the knowledge that this was probably the last run of the competition – the forecast was for much lighter winds the next day.  So the team was amped right from the start.

And the video really speaks for itself. 

Fast Conditions

The conditions – small swell and strong wind – were ideal.  When the swell is big, it tends to become confused and it’s difficult to link runs efficiently. 

In the end nearly half the group beat their Personal Best times.  I beat mine by over half a minute. 

What a rush!

"It was an adrenalin rush and I can't wait to do it again…" said Vinnie Cicatello. He'd just completed his first ever Miller's Run, in the back of a double surfski with Oscar Chalupsky.

So...  the big O is in town.  I haven't seen him yet, on the day we were supposed to paddle, he was delayed, playing golf!  But I left his Nelo 520 at the club and he did a Miller's Run by himself...

As he fell off his ski yet again, Tim Wightman felt panic starting to well up.  If he didn’t get back on and paddling in the next few moments, the gale-force wind and breaking waves would drive him onto the jagged rocks of Miller’s Point.  “Calm down!” he yelled to himself.  “Take it slowly!”  “This time, stay in the f%#$ing boat!”