It has probably been said year after year since people started to surf, but winter is here at last. I don´t appreciate the cold that comes with it, but my gratitude is evident when it comes to cold fronts that push long range ground swell. South West swell in particular. We are just about to start getting another good run of surf as I write this. Gratitude - It´s such a funny word. I have lots to be grateful for.

First off, I just want to extend my condolences to David Lilienfeld who perished today from a fatal shark attack in the waters of Kogel Bay while doing what he loves.

Even though I don´t know the chap, I am sure you can understand why this is upsetting for me on many levels. The media has been chaos the last couple of days with the permit issued to a film crew, and you can read more about this on wavescape.co.za or just google it. I recall somebody said that his goldfish has the intellegence to associate the presence of a human close to it´s fish bowl as a sign of food. I can´t see why sharks would be less intellegent than a goldfish. Further than that, I will not be playing any blame games. It just really sucks that the guy is dead. Reminds me of promises about nuclear plants that can withstand earthquakes.

For those in the know, we have had some very nice runs of swell the last couple of days. I had a 4 hour session on Monday arvi, and surfed till my arms were jelly and it was almost dark. I knew the surf was going to be nice, but only managed to tear myself away from the computer screen around 15:30. When I got there, I was the only person to paddle out at Tubes. Shannon Ainslie paddled out at the same time, but he went over to Point. I was then joined by a boogy boarder, who went for all the waves I missed. Tubes was breaking lank fast, and I missed about 5 bomb waves because I just could not get into it quick enough.

I see the last update I did on this website was on 8 November! First of all, happy Christ-mas to all of you. My life went for a sudden unexpected turn in November, when I landed a programming contract with a large company through a facebook referral.