Jeffreysbaai, Jeffreys Bay in English or J Bay as it is called by the locals, is home to the world famous Supertubes waves that Rich and I are years away from surfing but which those that know what they are doing can ride for a long way down this stretch of the Indian ocean.
We planned on spending four nights here, firstly to have a few beach days and work on the holiday tan and secondly to learn how to surf.
Our first plan was scuppered by terrible weather, even when the sun was out, the winds were high and the temperatures low due to wind chill (well not warm enough to wear a bikini on the beach anyway) and every now and then the rain fell. Weather wise, J Bay reminded us very much of home.
“The winds were so strong the sand blasted the sides of our faces”
As the weather wasn’t great, we signed up for surf school straight away. Now I will try to describe the hell that our first lesson included.
The winds were so strong the sand blasted the sides of our faces as we did our beach based session. Then once in the water, the strength of the waves battered our bodies forwards, backwards, sideways, upwards and downwards whilst simultaneously the wind sprayed the surf back into our faces with the force of uncooked frozen peas being shot out of a bb gun.
All of this combined with the fact that we spent a lot of time trying to fight the current to get out to the surf and then spent more time trying to get up on our boards than we did on them, meant that our first two hour surf lesson culminated in a total of approximately ten seconds standing on our boards. Of those ten seconds I think it is fair to say at no point were Rich and I actually in control either.
Despite all of this, we loved it!
“They looked like proper surf boards and weren’t much fun at all in my opinion.”
The weather for the next few days was windy with intermitent rain, so we managed another two days of surfing after our lesson, hiring wetsuits and 6’7” fun boards and going for as long as we could before our toes froze so much it was impossible to stay in the water any longer.
The fun boards were not like the nice long foam boards we used in our first lesson. They looked like proper surf boards and weren’t much fun at all in my opinion as everything got harder to do! Our second day on the waves was worse than our first and by the third day we’d started to catch a few waves each, although only standing for a few seconds at a time.
To say we have surfed in J Bay would be a slight stretch on the truth. The fact is we tried to surf in J Bay, we gave it a damn good go and certainly have the bug for it and will be trying it again on our travels. Hopefully in much warmer waters too.
“Ten foot waves towered above the surfers and we saw them one by one drop into waves”
One of the particularly windy days in J Bay, where we daren’t go near the water, we visited the viewing deck at Supertubes and watched the experienced surfers do what they do best. Ten foot waves towered above the surfers and we saw them one by one drop into waves I could never imagine being able to surf. I found slight comfort in the fact that even the pros fell off their boards and got pummelled by the waves, maybe I wasn’t as bad as I thought? One thing is for sure though, they even managed to fall off with some sort of style and finesse that is beyond me.
Then we saw it, the surfer who looked like he’d been taken by the tumbling surf enveloping around him, only to see him glide out of the tube encasing him and surf along the wave some more. It was inspiring to see this in action and of course, Rich now wants to come back to Supertubes one day and be able to surf them in style too. I foresee a lot of surfing in our future.
We stayed a total of six nights here in the end, extending our stay to allow for the surfing between days when all we could do was baton down the hatches and stay inside away from the howling wind and rain.
We had good company in the Hard Rock Backpackers where we were staying and had some good nights in the hostel bar and out in town, watching the rugby and singing karaoke with Pete and George the hostel volunteers, Jonne and Cindy fellow backpackers from Sweden and Melanie and Isabelle from Germany.
We grew to love J Bay and were a little sad to leave. Getting into a regular routine is a really nice thing when back packing, it’s not often you go into a kitchen and know where the pots and pans are or go to a supermarket and know vaguely where the things are that you need. So we enjoyed the familiarity of one place for six nights and after one last surf at Dolphins beach, we drove out of J Bay with dreams of riding Supertubes ourselves one day.
Lambs on the loose 