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“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…!

Yet another one of Sharon's Durban adventures...  Make sure it's switched to 1080p for best results - and if this doesn't get you leaning forward and backwards as you watch it, nothing will...

No more head-mount videos please!  Well, at least let's mix it up a little...  Head mount point of view is all very well, but I used to have a rear-deck mounted camera mast which gave a sensational perspective.  But having switched boats to the Swordfish S, the mast base wasn't compatible and I've been planning for ages to build a new one.  Here it is - the Mousley camera mast hack.

The Miller's Run in Cape Town is deservedly one of the best known downind routes in the world...  But it's on the "Reverse Buffels" run where we get to play in 40-50kt howling blasts of wind and spray.  On Saturday, 23 June, 2018, we had everything - wildlife, rainbows, endless 20kph runs, gale-force blasts in "Hurricane Alley"... and even a cameo appearance by the Kenny Rice!

"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.

When the wind blows, Sharon goes!

The waves in this video are ridiculous; the conditions (aside from the luxurious warm water) are very different to what we get here in Cape Town and I'm utterly envious.  

Of course the 29kt breeze helps too!  

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.

Durban - Series pacesetters Matt Bouman and Michelle Burn took home the spoils at the Vaaka Paddle Cadence Surfski Challenge on Friday night, the eighth leg of the popular FNB Surfski Series, best mastering the demands of the onshore Easterly weather conditions.

Durban, South Africa: The Marine Surfski Series is an annual set of 10 surfski races that use the light of the Durban summer every Friday night from the first week of January to the middle of March.

Run by Barry Lewin at the Marine Surf Lifesaving Club in Durban, the series has been run since the 1990s and is an institution in the surfski community.

In 2018, the series has been hit with some extreme weather which sadly caused some cancellations, but it's evenings like the one in this video that make it all worthwhile.

And the quality of the video is outstanding!

Click here for the race report