Cron Job

There has been an interesting debate about the origin of the surf spot just to the right of Long Beach after we published some epic shots recently (Slideshow here).

We called it Krons, which caused some interesting responses. One called Nabs said it had something to do with Krans, as in rooikrans, the alien tree that grows all over the place. He said Krons was a bastardisation of the last part of rooikrans.

However, the ballies have come out to say that yes, it was misspelled, but that the correct spelling is Crons. In the words of veteran surfer Paul Botha "the spot was named after the Crons dairy, operated by the Cronwright family from where the Valyland Centre is in Fish Hoek now".

He said that the Cronwrights had a herd of cows that grazed where Sun Valley is and they were milked at the farmhouse situated where Sun Valley school is now.

"We named the high-tide right on Long Beach 'Crons' in the mid-60's because we got 'creamed' there trying to ride the hollow right-handers on 9'6" barges with no rocker that weighed 15 kgs!

"It became more makeable with the shortboard revolution in the late 60's when guys like Johnny Orton, Peers Pittard and Beau Wrankmore were the early standouts. A pic of Gunther Rohn riding backhand at Crons featured on the cover of "Hitting the Lip' written by Cornel Barnett - the first book on surfing published in South Africa in 1971.

"Spelling the name Krons is definitely incorrect and I'm not sure how it morphed into Krans over the years - but back the day it was original named Crons!
 
Paul reckons he knew the Cronwrights well. In 1959, he and two friends bought an old crashed Ford Escort from them for five pounds.

"We towed the car to the Hesterman’s farm – where Monkey Valley is now – fixed it up and drove it around the farm, on the road that goes to the Red Herring (then just a gravel track) and on Noordhoek beach. We even got stuck at the water’s edge once as the tide came in. By the time we got a tractor down there to tow it out the waves were breaking over it!"