Happy Birthday Spike!

Do you watch SABC weather or how do you make your calls?

Actually I watch E-TV weather as I like Derek cause I have met him and he is a cool guy and we have actually chatted about working together funny enough.  E-TV’s weather is by far the best but it is not where I get my information from.  I am a bit of a jack of all trades when it comes to surf forecasting.  I refer to my own wavescape ocean watch model actually more than anything as I built it to satisfy my needs of what I was looking for.  It is kind of like a hybrid between bouyweather, and a little bit of magicseaweed and windguru and so it is like an amalgamation of all of those.  I use these to get my data and for my pictures, I like pictures, I use a site called firstweather.com which has brilliant synoptic surface wind charts.  I like to look at the wind that is behind the swell.  It is all very well looking at bouyweather or wavescape and you will see a certain size swell, with a certain direction on a certain day but with those surface wind charts you can see the originating wind behind the swell.  So I am able to get a bigger picture of how intense the swell really is and the quality of it as well.

What is your background?

I am just like any other surfer and I like to dabble in boats.  I am 45 so since my early twenties I have been trying to call when it is good to go to Jbay (I grew up in the Eastern Cape).    The first call was when I could go down to Cowies? or East London and then the next thing was “when can I go to Jbay?”.  We all just read the synoptic chart in the newspaper and so that is where it all started.  When I was overseas in Australia for a year in the mid nineties the internet was just starting to take off  and I would go online and look and there was nothing that gave enough information and I would freak out so I just said *$#@ I am going to make my own website with information of all the spots I had surfed.

Would you move over to the States and become a Sean Collins?

No I probably wouldn’t even get a job as a surf forecaster as it is covered pretty well by big dynasties.  But no I wouldn’t give up living here in SA for anything in the world.  This is the place to be and to all those people who are pessimistic about our politics and economy must just look and see what is actually going on overseas.

I think us as surfers we see what an amazing lifestyle we have and just cannot complain. For those people who only go to work they don’t get to experience what we do so maybe it is different for them.

Totally.  On the flip side it is all very well to have the flexibility to go and surf when I want to but when you take on your enjoyment as a job it’s quite hard to keep it fun and for it not to become a chore.  A guy like Kelly is amazing as he has been competing for so long but still flies the flag for that old stoke.  It is quite incredible.