rob mousley

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.

When WindGuru forecast a 40kt NNW, we leapt at the opportunity to do a "Reverse Buffels" run, downwind from Fish Hoek to Buffels Bay in the Cape Point Nature Reserve.

I planned to film the others so I started off first so as to film them overtaking me. When I arrived at Millers Point, no-one else was in sight.

After waiting briefly, I carried on, unaware that one of the guys had suffered rudder failure and the group, having rescued him, stopped at Millers Point. While it wasn't a spectacularly fast paddle - I did the 20.5km in 1:30 - it was bloody good fun.

An oldie, but a goody...  Paddling the Miller's Run in the back of a V10 Double with Oscar Chalupsky.  I've had the pleasure of doing several of these with the big O and each time it's been a combination of revelation and inspiration.

VIP Rob enjoys a beer in Dubai

[Editor: This feels weird - I knew nothing about this article until a few minutes ago - but it's a nice surprise! Thanks Al!]

Since you are reading this article on surfski.info, it is very likely you will come across the name 'Rob Mousley'. Rob is the joint founder of surfski.info and is a prolific writer and avid surf-skier. In the 3 years of surfski.info's existence, Rob has published over 600 articles which have generated nearly 5 million pageviews from readers all over the world.

Sunday 18th May is not only the day of surf-skiing's most famous race, the Molokai Crossing, but, by some huge co-incidence, it is also Rob's 45th birthday. Rob is currently in Hawaii and will be realising a dream of taking on the winds and ocean swells to make the 56km crossing from Molokai to Oahu. In the last few weeks Rob has written a number of articles profiling the world's top surfski paddlers, and I thought it would be a good idea to profile Rob himself!