It amused me to stop and smell the patties at Cow Mouth. Well, Kei Mouth actually, at Fresh Waters Whacky Point.
There is a lot of graffiti in the hut there. A community project has prettied up the shack and a commentator has mused Cow Mouth on the wall in place of Kei Mouth.
The humour is accurate. The local Ngunis in the area are a living part of the art.
A quote painted on the wall from John and Pix caught my eye: “The beach fixes everything.”
Perchance yes, but may I suggest choose your beach carefully before you decide to jump and paddle out.
Surfing Whacky Point is absolutely for the brave and well experienced only.
Even in my fittest of days, and I am well past that now, the break completely intimidated me.
I have snapped few surfboards in half in powerful waves in my career and Whacky Point is one of them.
If you are an average surfer, do not give this break a go.
It was, I believe, Andre Malherbe and friends that largely pioneered the break.
“When we first surfed it we called it Suicide Point but then we changed it to Whackys,” Malherbe said.
For starters, the jump rock that you paddle out from is from hell.
A small keyhole through the teeth at the top of the ride must be expertly timed off slippery dolerite to make it to the back line.
This is just down from the highly inaccurately named Duck Pond — more like a violent boiling cauldron of death if you ask me.
Think twice before you go fishing at Duck Pond. If you get the jump wrong at Whackys, you are going to pay in blood.
Beyond this, the break is extremely close to very deep water.
Any large lurgy swimming down the warm Agulhas from Durban to Cape Town is going to swim just under your tootsies and hopefully not look up for a bite.
The take-off is a hefty lurch. “Over the falls” is a surfing term for describing getting your take-off wrong and being flung by the lip through out of space.
There is a good chance you will know the experience after surfing Whackys.
Why on earth surf the break then you might ask?
If you are fit and strong and at the top of your game, like Jordan Dalbock for example, you might carve some acceptable artistic lines on the face of those waves.
This writer’s request to expert water photographer Pierre De Villiers is: “Please shoot these shots from the land.”
De Villiers usually swims out to get surfer’s eye view shots of the action from close up in the water.
I hope to still see shots from De Villiers for many years to come and swimming out at this break is ill advised to any photographer who wishes for a long career.
The final cherry on the top at Whackys is the exit out of the water across greased slippery rounded boulders in among roaring white water, with champion urchins and barnacles in between.
The chances of taking an absolute beating on the exit are excellent.
I tend to paddle all the way down to Whispering Waves at Cwilli Beach to get out.
Another warning — one of the Johnson brothers once stepped on a ragged tooth shark at the back line at Cwilli and took a few teeth in the foot there.
The regularly flooded Kei Mouth is just down the way so dirty water and raggies are plenty in the area.
Another credo on the wall at the Fresh Waters Shack springs to mind: “Feelings are like waves. We can’t stop them from coming but we can choose which ones to surf.” Anon
My choice was not to surf Whackys this last weekend but it was pretty (scary) to look at.
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