Both barrels!

DIK STORM: Heavy seas and rain and surfing lie in your near future. Photo Windy.com

Neptune, otherwise know as Posiedon, and his consorts Triton, Proteus, Rhodes, and Benthesikyme, will offload both barrels at the Cape coast overnight, with the worst of it smashing into us with westerly gales and giant seas at between 5 and 10am tomorrow, with that time frame seeing some heavy rain and a massive boost to the dam catchment of Cape Town.

All this news coming at us at once! The storm, with 40 foot seas and gusts to 45 knots in Cape Town and along the East Coast as the westerly buster slingshots up the coast, comes just as we digest the relaxing of the Covid-19 regulations to include the strictly controlled sale of alcohol and the probable opening of beaches and public parks to exercise activity, although sans ablutions and 'you can't braai'.

I don't care! I will braai at home, with a six pack of cold ones after getting shacked off my shaggy pip (or half drowned due to lack of surf fitness). The lowering of regulations to Level 3 was announced today. Oh my word. It's so exciting! I have been close to breaking point being so close to several point breaks and other reefs and beachies that have been firing for days' on end.

Yes, I could have surfed. I wouldn't have told anyone about it though. I would have just done it. Like many others have. I almost did. I am not encumbered by the danger of having a criminal reccord that would ruin some people's careers. I don't plan to travel either. Apparently you can't get a visa with a criminal record. A small risk, but one that they did not wish to take. I have not even touched ocean water. I am not asking sympathy for that. I chained myself to this reality from the beginning! Haha.

NEP TUNE YOU! Symbolism works well for the fury of the ocean and the brute force of storms.

When I go surfing, it will be one of the most incredible sensations of my life. Almost like a VE day celebration. Or coming out of hibernation. Or prison. Or a kidnap victim's first Taco and cold Corona after being released by an evil despot. A lost plane crash survivor's first chilled water after three months in the desert. Okay Okay. Enough already!

Some have surfed. Others have not.Winter has come! Covid se moer! No disrespect to those who have been surfing. I totally get it, and I don't blame anyone. But boy, I will feel pretty proud that I held out. A steady stream of winter swell and balmy calm days has lit up the coast with an unbelievable run of surf. Some have surfed. Others have not. Word in the car park at JBay is that visitors should be asked not to come surfing at Supers for a month to give locals a chance to recover from their anguish at watching Supers fire for days on end. They have adhered to the lockdown at some cost.

Elsewhere, people have been surfing. You can't control it, and the cops have known that. Here is part of the new regulation. Section 5a of the gazetted clause for surfing in Level 3 is an incredible read:

"Those who have been surfing during the lockdown are ordered to stay at home, and especially those who have been overly emotive on Facebook according to Schrodinger's Scale of whiny rhetoric. These people must sit and study the writings of Camus. Only when you score 85% in a test to prove you understand the following will you be allowed back in the water:

"Camus defined the absurd as the futility of a search for meaning in an incomprehensible universe, devoid of God, or meaning. Absurdism arises out of the tension between our desire for order, meaning and happiness and, on the other hand, the indifferent natural universe's refusal to provide that."

'Just please don't lick the paper and pass the zol'"Those surfers who have stoically held on to keeping out of the water, in spite of multiple Zoom sessions with therapists and loved ones, and screaming fits, can now have unfettered access to the best surf spots for 10 days straight. The NCCC feels that you are heroes, and we dearly want you to feel your cosmic oneness with nature and we don't even mind if you rub putrefying kelp into your hair! Just please don't lick the paper and pass the zol."

Just kidding! There is plenty of surf ahead. Winter has arrived and the surf does not drop below eight foot for the next seven days straight.

The irony is that despite this recent procession of storms rumbling past, which has seen one passing daily since Thursday, we have not experienced one proper winter storm until now. Finally some proof that Capetonians live on the Cape of Storms. Sunny skies and mild winds can be attributed to strong High pressures systems unusually far south in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans each side of us. This buffer zone has pushed storms south, stripping them of their power, and keeping us dry for now, with a light westerly flow of air across the region.

Different sizes and shapes torn asunder by the tempestThe third swell up to 8ft in four days came through today, but with a stiff NW wind in Cape Town, although cranking waves on the East Coast. But Sunday is just the hors d’oeuvre. The main course comes late tonight into Monday. The main storm is mustering. Late Sunday night the coastal winds begin to pump. By 2am Monday morning, heavy rains hit Cape Town, spreading east with good rainfall in the catchment. The winds are howling by the time you wake up early Monday morning, and westerly gales are blasting across the Western and Southern Cape’s coastal extremities, rapidly blasting up the East Coast.

A gigantic 40 foot swell lashes the coast, and False Bay gets hammered with big south swell. The ocean is awash with angry waves of different sizes and shapes torn asunder by the tempest. Just the way we like it!