How many people have been or would love to be in South Africa windsurfing during the winter?
Many riders from our Black Team, do spend some months over the winter in South Africa. Nicolas Akagazciyan, and Marco Vinante, are there now improving their freestyle and getting ready for their season. There used to be mainly Brazil and the Caribbean as the main destination for the top freestylers to train, but lately South Africa has been one of the spots where a lot of pros enjoy to go. Let’s read in some short answers the experience of other of our Black Team, Lena Erdil and Vincent Langer who are spending their last days in the African continent this week.
Lena Erdil
[mk_circle_image src=”https://point-7.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/lena_thumb.jpg” image_diameter=”500″]
Vincent Langer
[mk_circle_image src=”https://point-7.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/langer.jpg” image_diameter=”500″ ]
Describe South Africa in 20 words.
Waves, strong wind, endless white beaches, city life, nature, wild animals, parties, mountains, road trips, surfing, ice cold water, beautiful
Describe amazing, beautiful, rich, poor, windy, salty, monkeys, sharks, beach, waves, Capetown, Langebaan, DownwindDash, friendly, cheap,nature
Describe amazing, beautiful, rich, poor, windy, salty, monkeys, sharks, beach, waves, Capetown, Langebaan, DownwindDash, friendly, cheap,nature
I love the sailing and living conditions here. The best thing about Capetown is without a doubt the amount of days you can have awesome conditions on the water for windsurfing or surfing. There is so many spots within even an hours driving distance, after 5 years of coming here i am still discovering new spots to sail!
In Capetown/Table view and in Langebaan! Testing for Fanatic and for racing.
How many days are you staying in South Africa this winter?
I will be here for 2 month this winter
4 weeks, but i went home for Christmas and and came back to work on the 2017 Fanatic Boards and to compete at the Downwind Dash and the Kite-and Windsurfing Cup Langebaan.
What did you learn during your stay?
I’m working on improving my wavesailing so cutbacks and jumps
My back loops are getting better and better, but this time is actually about having fun on the water! Training starts after.
Next stop?
Brief stop at home, then Tenerife for some hardcore slalom training
Tenerife! Will be the from 31st of January till middle of March
When?
Which spots did you mainly sail?
I sailed a lot in bigbay this year simply because it has been so extremely windy and bigly is one of the only spots where the wave stays less choppy even with crazy strong winds!
Slalom or wave mostly?
😀 Only wave, i am leaving all my slalom hunger for the training month ahead in tenerife and turkey
First 2 weeks only waves sailing! Second time mostly Slalom.
Your favorite spot?
I just love being on the water, so I had fun at all spots. Best session so far was at Melkboss for Wave and Sladanha for Slalom
Anything you’d like to let your fans know from your experience in S.A?
Well special this year was definitely my little shark encounter story, its quite funny as everybody seems to have read it i actually had quite a few people coming up to me at the beach being like you are Lena the one from the shark story haha So in case you didn’t read it here its is:
Come here, the Rand make this trip quite cheap right now 😉
Every year when i tell people i’m going to Capetown for my winter trainings, one of the first questions i get asked is are you not scarred of sharks? I always say nah not really i never really saw one in 5 years of going there.. Well this now has changed, yesterday i had my first 1 on 1 shark encounter in capetown and yes i was soo scarred I think i have never been that scarred in my life! I actually managed to hit what i am pretty sure was a great white and catapult pretty far out in sunset beach, I was properly screaming then sitting on my board trying to keep my limbs out the water saw the fin of what i presume was the same shark i hit about 5 meters away from me swimming up and down. I was just paralyzed sitting on my board wondering what to do and just quietly swearing trying to keep calm and not freak out completely.. With of course no uphaul line,super light wind and my kit totally in the wrong position i was just looking around to see if i could wave another windsurfer over to give me enough courage to jump in and waterstart.. No one there unfortunately except one other guy who had also seen the shark and was not going to stay with me ??. With the next gust i did finally get in and waterstart and luckily didnt see the shark again. I was soo happy reaching the beach i think i had a big grin on my face, pure relief and happiness of surviving this. I dont want to sound overly dramatic but I still cant believe that this actually happened to me! So for the next time someone askes me i now have a proper shark encounter story to tell, and am pretty happy to know that it didnt attack even though i hit it!!! And yes I am sure it was not a seal, a dolphin or a moonfish as i have seen plenty of those and was obviously trying hard to see one of them rather then a shark after hitting it!! On the brightside, it looks like capetown sharks are totally harmless ? .. so i’m totally looking forwards to the once again awesome forecast of the next few days and am actually strangely not scarred to go back in the water at all!!
