Work

I finally realize the kind of artistic anguish a weatherman might experience. When Saakie the weather guy starts using a French loaf as a pointer or wearing flippers to show you it’s rainy, you know the poor man is crying to spice things up.

There are only so many ways a guy can say the waves are really small and it’s windy outside. Because that’s what it is. You can go down and have a look, but you’ll probably squint your eyes in the glare and say, “Juss, its kak” before driving back home.

Doing the surf report must be infuriatingly monotonous. My brothers and I used to suspect Turtle Morris had a video camera set up near the harbor parking lot. After reporting that Fence was fife foot and sucking bellow sea level, he’d watch swarms of surfers swerve through the 5 o clock traffic, desperate to squash a wave in before dark. Of course there’d be no waves and everyone there would cuss the corporate world for making us work during the best hours of the day. “Ag man, I bet it was sick at about three o clock, before this bloody westerly blew all the swell to China!” someone would say. Meanwhile, Turtle’s got his feet up on the couch, watching the best kind of reality television available to humankind.

Anyhow, Round 2 of the Billabong is on today. Mundaka is around 4 feet and it looks pretty fun. It’s not cooking, but still decent. I was reading Bede Dubrige’s blog on the ASP website (http://www.aspworldtour.com/) and he had similar sentiments about Mundaka as a venue. It’s too fickle and tidal, but the potential for perfection is there.

Slater has to win his next heat to take the world title a ninth time, but this will only happen tomorrow (more than likely). Ricky Basnett, Jordy Smith and Travis Logie (all from Durban) are surfing later in the morning.