Tabla de contenidos para July 2018 en Zigzag

Admit it, you love it when your surfing buddy misses a good session and you get to tell them all about it. “You should’ve been there, bru. It was pitting left, right and centre, ekse.” The recount often includes a couple of embellished facts, and the surfer regaling doesn’t give the full report; like how crowded it really was, or the fact that it only barrelled left, right and centre for half an hour while the tide filled in. But that’s the beauty of it, your buddy wasn’t there to learn the truth for themselves. I remember my first time. I was twelve, and up until that point my brother and I had always surfed together. When he went for a wave, little bro would come too, so the opportunity…

At 10:00pm on 28 September 2002, I stood shivering on the edge of a pool in the middle of the Pilanesberg mountains. Rave music was blaring from speakers, lasers were lighting up the sky, and I was holding a surfboard in the dark, waiting for a sculpted lion’s head to start spurting water, which would be my cue to jump in. I was at the Valley of the Waves at Sun International’s Lost City resort. Travis Logie and I were finalists in a man-on-man surf-off at a Spring Break festival. It was held on a cold spring evening, with hundreds of people on the beach dancing to hideous music. We drank beers between waves and whoever could fit that extra turn in before it closed out against the wall, would…

TALLER than you think I knew that a longboard is at least nine-foot long measured from nose to tail along the deck of the board, but I discovered that a log goes a step further in the length department. Most loggers ride boards that are at least 9’2” long, while many ride boards that are 10’0” and even longer. But that is just the beginning. As a rule of thumb, to qualify for entry into a logging contest, your board must adhere to more requirements than just length. In fact, never mind contests, my desire to log compelled me to want to be riding the right craft, and board length was just the beginning. WIDTH in the hips Before long I became aware not only of required length, but of…

THERE’S A FAMOUS LINE FROM THE 1989 MOVIE FIELD OF DREAMS THAT GOES, “If you build it, they will come.” In the film, novice farmer Ray (played by Kev Costner with a full head of hair) hears this while walking through his mielie field. He keeps hearing the voice repeat this line until he realises it’s the ghost of a dead baseball star telling him to build a stadium in the arse-end of nowhere. Everyone thinks Ray has gone a bit crazy but he clears his field and builds the stadium anyway. With his family facing financial ruin, it looks like Ray was sold a lemon but then lo and behold, a team of famous dead baseball legends rock up to play ball! The movie ends with thousands of fans…

@sachaspex M-Feb charging his crystals and positive vibes for a journey through the green room. #positivevibewarrior #cantstealhisvibe #surfing #waterphotography #vans #quiksilver @mikeyfebruary @dougalpaterson Zion Awaits! @alanvangysen Instagram is great. It gives the frothers among us – pretty much all of us, let’s face it – the option of an endless stream of stoke just a thumb scroll away. But it’s not perfect, because after viewing the two-inch wide teaser and clicking the little heart, we scroll away and forget the photo almost faster than we viewed it. Which is why we’re stoked to present Latergram, with photos stamped permanently in ink on paper across two pages, so there’s no need to squint and then quickly forget. @ianthurtell @joshefaulkner had been punting into the perfect air wind for about half an…

Backside tuberiding can be tricky, because your ability to react and adjust on the fly becomes delayed once you’re locked-in. Grabbing the rail is the easy part, but it’s difficult to ‘unlock’ and pumping doesn’t cover as much distance. You can still get the barrel of your life pig dogging though, and these are some things I’ve learned the hard way: CHOOSE YOUR ENTRY POINT: Positioning yourself is important. If you’re a couple metres too far out then the wave will pitch underneath you, and being too far in won’t allow you the time to get to your feet and make that first pump, resulting in you being pitched and destroyed. So you need to sit under the lip/ledge and behind the peak. It’s the only way to get properly…

Since the genesis of pro surfing in 1976, there has been a long list of South Africans representing at the highest level. Including world champs like Shaun Tomson, Wendy Botha and Martin Potter, there have been other performers like Heather Clark, Jordy Smith and Bianca Buitendag fighting it out for world titles. And who could forget the 2007 season when there were no less than six Saffas on the Dream Tour? Among those names were Ricky Basnett, Royden Bryson, Travis Logie, Rosy Hodge, Davey Weare and Greg Emslie, who retired following the 2009 season after nine years on the World Championship Tour. Nowadays you’ll find him back home in East London away from the spotlight, still doing what he does best. Flip the page for a different perspective. Now it’s…

Along with original members of the Seal Surf Club like Bernie Shelly and Therese Russell, Nola Viotti is among a small group of women surfers who’ve been styling since the sixties in Cape Town. Now 69 years young, Nola gave us an update: “Seals don’t have longevity, so we call ourselves the Turtles now, because we’re tough and a bit leathery!” jokes Nola. “I slipped away from surfing for a bit when I married my second husband, but continued to mind-surf and wondered if it would happen for me again,” says Nola on a more serious note. “Then when I turned 60, as a joke I joined a young godchild to play in the surf, and the stoke came rushing back. I promptly ordered a new board and re-connected with…

Wouldn’t it be cool to be a sardine? You get to spend the whole of spring and most of the summer spawning and carousing along the Agulhas banks before heading off with your mates on an epic surf trip to Durban. Sardines don’t recognise the drop-in rule and it’s not uncommon to see two or three thousand of them on the same wave. It’s a bit like Muizenberg in that way. Also, they have a brilliant motto – “Live fast and die young”. Once a sardine reaches three years old, he’s considered ancient and is unlikely to be invited to any of the really good beaching parties. Surfers and sardines are remarkably alike. We probably don’t taste as good as they do on toast, but we do prefer to travel…