With the strong SE in the morning the excitement was almost palatable. Sitting at Big Bay waiting to load the trailer the mood was changing rapidly as the strong SE wind started to fade and it faded fast. So fast in fact that the Kiteboarding competition, at Table View Beach, had to rescue 30 plus kite boarders when the wind died suddenly and they were all left in the drink.

This was not good news for us either and the picture was just as bleak when we arrived at Milnerton. The surf was about big toe height. In fact Langebaan lagoon has a bigger wave. The SE had turned to a small Easterly puff which was a first for the DWD.

I think the wind and surf heard that the big “O” was coming and in all the excitement went weak at the knees!!! That must have been it! We had 5 first timers including Oscar and Greg, the professionals.

First start got off without a hitch and the second start was left to chase them down. With flat conditions I could not understand why many paddlers went so deep. Surely a straight line is quicker?

Out of the 42 paddlers there were 7PB’s set / 6 were first times and one was a new doubles combo. What is quite interesting was the number of Bullets paddling. 25 % of the field were born on or before the year that Sony introduced the Betamax home video recorder.

It was also great to have a guest visit from Jo Anne Hay who last did a DWD in ’06 and now resides in Pretoria.

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