It is called the paddle of shame and it is horrible when a surfing session turns so bleak that you just give up, turn around and paddle in.
The more desired exit is that you catch a cracker wave, tear it to shreds and go flying in on one of your best rides of the day.
If you finish strong, it bodes well for a strong start in your next session
All surfers know this and if you are a parent or a partner waiting for your surfer to get out of the water and it takes some time, you might get the explanation: “I just could not find that good wave to come in on.”
We always want to ride in on a wave of victory.
On New Year’s Eve on Wednesday, December 31, I was sitting in a high place on top of the signal tower retaining wall above Jongensfontein.
This is just 9km down the coast from Still Bay, given as a seven-minute drive on Google maps.
I had the panorama of the point and bay below me as I sat above the prime hillside homes and thought about a strong finish to 2025.
I was a little under time pressure because it was 6.20pm, a featherlight cross offshore was blowing, ideal low tide for the point waves below was approaching at 7.30pm and lights out would be at about 8pm.
I decided that finishing the year riding a wave would be my best close.
However, owing to a small complexity of logistics, I had no surfboard with me. No problem.
My friend Johann Bredell from Boland stays on the water’s edge at Jongensfontein. I popped down the hill to ask him if I could borrow a board.
We have been friends for the past 33 years from competing at SA surfing championships.
To my pleasant surprise, his friend Ludolf Janse van Rensburg had a high performance 9’0” x 22” x 2.625” David Stubbs longboard to lend me. What serendipity.
The waves were tiny and in those conditions a longboard is a truckload of fun. Braai fires were being started all over the seaside village and as I paddled out, the inviting waft of smoke drifting over the waves lured all surfers back to land, bar one.
The last man in the water along with me was good friend and Baleia Wines general manager Gunter Schultz.
We agreed that a glass of wine to finish off when we got out would be good.
In the water we surfed, swapped boards and traded waves for an hour.
While the waves were an inconsistent, bumpy one- to two-foot plus, the water was clean and warm and on account of the right board for the conditions and stellar company, my last rides of 2025 were a delight.
Indeed, after I got out and changed, a small glass of chilled Baleia Chardonnay came to hand.
“Our local vines here are 9km inland from the sea at Vermaaklikheid,” Gunter told me.
“The limestone here is an ancient seabed and you can taste a hint of oyster shell in the bouquet,” he enthused.
This man is more passionate about wine than Picasso was about paint.
“Soil and climate are the key,” he added.
“The grapes for this Chardonnay we are drinking were picked in the second week of February 2022. I pick on palate.”
Gunter tastes his grapes every day when the time to pick is close. Some vintners will test their grapes for sugar content and PH before they go to harvest. It is a very measured event.
Gunter knows his vines by eye. Stalk colour is important, pip colour, texture and flavour of the grape must be just right, and somewhere close to Valentine’s Day he picks and presses.
How lucky am I that I get to drink this award-winning celebration of the vine with the man who made it, along with conversation about Jimmy Hendrix’s Little Wing (Gunter’s first dance at his wedding), Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lynn Bredell’s favourite blues song of all time, Gary Moore’s Parisienne Walkways.
With the braai fire going and good company as the night settled on the waves in front of us, the windstill evening could not have been more perfect.
Talking about finishing on a good ride, Ludolf said to me “that 9’0” lives in a board cover next to the house.
“It will still be lying there when you come back next year, Nick. You can paddle it out any time you want,” he kindly offered.
I am loving how 2025 finished strong. I think 2026 is going to be just great, and I hope yours is too.
Happy New Year, everyone.
DAILY DISPATCH
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