Death by Devil Winds, The Best Highline In The Biz And The Sharkiest Spot On Tour
"No Contest" in the house of poor Jeff.
Jeffreys is most renowned for elongated walls, lurking underwater locals, and most recently how damn well Filipe Toledo surfs the place. But the midway marker of the 2018 world tour, like all locales, is home to more than you see on the stream.
Consider "No Contest" your insight behind the webcast, and no, this one isn’t streaming purely on Facebook.
But before you surf it, you need to get there, and as it turns out, South Africa’s southern tip ain’t the easiest of locations to get to. Jeffreys Bay only sits one hour drive from Port Elizabeth, but it takes the majority of the tour a hell of a lot longer to get there than a simple car trip.
Multiple long haul flights, missed connections, extended car rides which altogether are usually more than 24 hours worth of straight transit, or in some cases two days.
But once you’re there “you’re looking at getting one of the longest rides of your life,” as Jordy Smith, the local 2x J-Bay winner puts it.
In addition to freesurfing and warmup footage of the tour taking to the Supertubes canvas, we spoke to Jordy for a rundown from Boneyards down to The Point (it’s a kilometre long), Carissa Moore on her first time and first competition here for the women's inaugural showing at Jeffreys, plus local big wave surfer, shaper and restauranteur, Grant ‘Twiggy’ Baker for a run around the town.
J-Bay isn’t just all about the top-32 though, Surfers Not Street Children is a not for profit group making a noticeable difference in South Africa using surfing as their means – hence the name. They’ve been operating out of Durban since 2012, and are also set-up in Mozambique and the United Kingdom. Rather than surfing being a simple hobby, the organisation has used surfing to redirect children at risk and place something positive within their lives – just ask Sihle Mbutho, who was helped by SNSC and is now an ambassador for them.
Oh, plus there’s sharks, a few of ‘em. And you thought Margies was littered.
Just jump up there and watch the clip already.
