The Bluff is basically ruled by the Palmbooms, a very well known South African surfer family. Rudy Palmboom is a passionate surfer and owner of the hostel we stayed in, the Ansteys Beach Backpackers
Rudy, he is one crazy charger who loves the big swells!
The few times when he wasn’t busy with the living-the-life sort of thing he was generous, giving us advise on local breaks, personal surf style or simply how to fix a ding real quick.
His daughter, Heidi set up a vibey surfer coffee place. Everybody in town knows its awesome cappuccino and the lovely breakfast. Heidis Cafe check it out and enjoy the view.
During our time in Durban we had a quite stuffed timetable! On the first day we left for Addington beach. Once there we had the practical surf test of our ISA surf instructor course hold by Chris Bond. The test is held in so called “heats” like in competitions, there is a set number of surfers in the water who have to achieve something in a set time.
Each left and right two open face rides have to be shown within 30min!
The lifesaving course I didn’t participate in, because I already passed this part of the game last year in in Bundoran, Ireland. I finished it just before we started a road trip through the south of Ireland and the north of Scotland. I left with an RLSS and a SLS GB beach lifeguard award.
As it is nearly the end of this awesome trip with Ticket to Ride, I decided it would be a good Idea to get a new board. And some sick Artwork on the “old” one.
With the Clayton factory right in town most of us got a new customized board!
I didn’t plan on getting another board, but one day when we walked in the shop to get our Hurricane boardbags I saw this 5.6 old school “Twinfish” and I fell in love! It was Dean’s freshly made custom board. He’s one of the guys selling us new Claytons. But he was all chilled about it and said;
You can have it, I got a whole factory here, Ill just make me a new one!
So I bought it and changed the retro fish “Twinfin” to a “Quadfin”set up .
But no matter what board you’re surfing or how talented you are.
Sunrises and sunsets are for free – just chill and enjoy.
The Cover picture shows Mathias Schulz – Matze
That picture was taken by Luke Geldenhuis he’s one of our Trip leaders of the
Thanks for reading – Jonas
