Long Beach Raided

The aim of the DVS beach raid, for those of you who don’t know, is to pitch up at a random beach, give away a bunch of cool gear and give one surfer a serious bundle of moola. It’s not about competition, but about sneakily rewarding some lucky human for their exploits in the water. This time the venue was a sunny and unsuspecting Long Beach, with light offshores blowing and glassy 3ft peelers bobbing around.

The Beach Raid task force landed with silent precision, all one of their highly trained combatants skalking out the vehicle (already battered and battle scarred) with precise and measured movements. It seemed no one but the car guard had noticed his arrival, and he was harmless; old and somewhat toothless. There were several surfers in the parking lot, suiting up, and a throng of small children chasing a ball on the beach. This wasn’t going to be easy, it would take finesse and decisive action.

After another precautionary check of the vicinity the task force, well it was just me, carried the ammunition out onto the deck area. Two boxes of sandals and 50 T shirts, more than enough to cause havoc. Set up was immediate and I was ready, the first person to cross my path would get a free shirt and slops, they had no choice.

A big man walks toward me, carrying a child’s boogie board and sporting an oddly short pony-tail. I attack. “Hi, do you want a free T shirt?” I say, shooting a toothy grin directly at him. The big man deviates, stops and backs away, “Ah no, thank you.” He says in a heavy French accent. I try again, “but they are free...” this time my grin doesn’t shoot out, rolls off my face, landing at his feet. “It’s fine, I have enough shirts” the big frenchie says, grabbing the hand of his small son, who had now caught up to him, and beating a hasty retreat. Wow. That wasn’t easy at all. I am here to give stuff away, like a young Father Christmas with a redder beard and no reindeer. But I get rebuffed by a giant French dude! A couple walks up. “Hi” I caution. “Hi” they beam in unison. “Want some free stuff?” I venture, feeling more like a door to door salesman than Santa. “What! Really? Stoked!” The guy says, “Is this really for free?” says the girl. “Yes, free, like Christmas in Vietnam”.

Well, I didn’t say that last bit, but smiled as they grabbed their slops. The next group,  groms, is attracted by the activity. Like the start of a feeding frenzy. No problem giving them free shirts and slops, and they emitted long syllabled sounds like "Sweeeeet bruuuu", and "duuuude!". The attack of unexpected brand kindness was under way, a minor casualty being my grin, stopped dead by a Frenchman's size 12 foot. Once I had shaken off the war clichés, I went to find someone to give a thousand rand to. Speaking to some biltong eating locals, it was suggested that I just take the money and go to the bottle store. “Hmm, tempting, but somewhat immoral”, I replied. The man ripped a piece of dry kudu meat in half with his yellowish teeth and looked at me like I had a brain made of soft serve.

It didn’t take long. Cameron Gouws took off on a left, did a quick turn, pumped and smashed the lip, freeing his fins and rotating 180 degrees, before just holding on for the second 180, to complete a beautiful reverse. Hard to beat, that kind of stuff. Mickey February and Tanika Hoffman did their best, but couldn’t match it, so Cameron went home a thousand bucks richer.