It´s been a hard day for me, but here´s my version of what happened as published on wavescape.co.za. Working on some slideshow highlights in the meantime. Coverage of the event by Zigzag was epic and Silver Bullet Productions did an amazing job by uploading timely highlight clips of every heat. In fact, by twelve o´clock South African time they were all loaded on Youtube.

Ryan Payne solidified his reputation as the Supertubes specialist with this second victory in the Xcel PRO Showdown at Supertubes. The Xcel PRO Showdown at Supertubes is a specialty event where standout surfers at Supertubes are invited to take part in an exclusive showdown with the winner awarded a wild card entry into the Billabong PRO event.

Ryan managed to outwit and out-surf all his fellow competitors right up to his last opponent, 17 year old Remi Peterson. Payne displayed versatile surfing throughout the event when conditions changed and still managed to sneak in a barrel or two where others would not even try. A very stoked Ryan remarked at the Awards Ceremony that this had been the greatest contest he has ever surfed which is similar to what he had to say when he took the trophy in 2009.

Remi did the groms proud (and his dad) and apart from getting a second in the event, he was awarded a total prize money of R 10 000 cash for the Best Junior as well as the Best Barrel of the event. Remi was visibly at home on the wave which is not surprising since Supertubes is literally in his backyard. On his way he took out some heavy names including 2009 finalist, Warren Dean, as well as Deon Lategan who was in the top 4 of the 2009 event.

Conditions were good as forecasted, but surf dropped quickly from the first heats in the morning with some freak 8ft sets coming through and otherwise a consistent 4 to 6ft. As the event progressed, it dropped even more and some longer lulls occurred which gave the contestants some time to catch breath between waves. There were also several scattered showers and photographers and cameramen scrambled a couple of times to keep their equipment dry. Cold weather did not deter the spectators and the crowd built steadily up to the final. During the final, there were not so many waves and it turned into a tactical heat where wave choice and split second decisions cost Remi the finals.

During round 2 in heat 3, Deon Lategan got barreled countless times with making most or all of the barrels he committed to. The crowd was hooting and whistling permanently. Warren Dean who was on a serious mission and in great form was stopped in his tracks by Remi Peterson who emerged out of the most amazing barrel that also landed him the R 5000 prize for Best Barrel.

On another note, an interesting event witnessed by a member of the camera crew and a photographer, was the presence of very large predators in the water. In the area directly behind the competitors during the second Semi Finals with Deon and Remi, a flock of sea birds were seen diving and feeding in the area. At that time within a period of 10 minutes, three very large splashes and some thrashing were seen. No fins were identified, but a large wake was seen before one of the splashes with no dolphins surfacing anywhere. It did not seem like anybody in the crowd noticed anything, nor the commentator. Connect the dots.

At the end of the day, all the contestants were winners in their own right and even though some of them were visibly upset by being eliminated, they could still squeeze off a smile and express their stoke and gratitude towards Koffie and the Xcel team. As usual the JBU did the water patrol, which provided entertainment between competing waves. In the end, Koffie Jacobs, the event organizer, thanked everybody involved including the locals, sponsors, media partners and contestants and stated that they would love to do the same thing in 2011. Let´s hope they do and well done to everybody who was part of the event!