AT THE BEACH | Checking out Bruce’s Beauties and Grannies Pool with a cappuccino

There is a dreamy little longboard wave rolling through Huletts and Left Overs just off Grannies Pool here in St Francis Bay as I write this.

It is Friday morning and I have the particular privilege of the front table at Bruce’s Coffee Shop, facing the sea, drinking cappuccino and watching a few waves get ridden.

I am looking straight down the old St Francis Bay NSRI slipway onto the wave.

The Coffee Shop is in what used to be the old NSRI building after the said institution moved out to set up at the new harbour venue.

Upstairs from the coffee shop a small conference venue can present to 24 people.

I am at the SA Masters Short Board Surfing Championships and I have a lay day, so I can chill for a while before the serious grind of quarterfinals tomorrow.

I am not a coffee snob. I can just as easily drink Frisco or Ricoffy or tea.

But where I drink my coffee, with whom and when? Now there is a thing.

I have been wanting a cup of coffee with Ernest Bendeman for a long time. Ernie and his wife Nikki own the coffee shop. Ernie is a friend of mine from around 1986 when I was living in Gqeberha, then Port Elizabeth.

Grannies Pool is at the bottom of the ride at the world-famous Bruce’s Beauties wave.

When you exit the tube ride, if you plan, place and execute it right, you can straighten out, surf up the gully, into the pool, walk up the slipway and order your cup of java (shaken, not stirred).

We parked the car in the car park and walked in.

Bruce’s Beauties was discovered by the legendary Bruce Brown during the 1963 filming of the iconic surf movie Endless Summer.

This wave which moves down the sand peninsular became an instant international fable and folk law.

Nine years before this, in 1954, a crazy Englishman Leighton Hulett got sold a lemon and purchased a tract of sand dunes as a farm.

But Hulett was a man of vision and by stabilising the dunes and carving canals he created what is today one of South Africa’s most beautiful and sought-after pieces of real estate.

This writer has the good fortune to have surfed with Hulett’s ambidextrous son Neville — he can surf both natural or goofy; that is to say both left foot forward or right foot forward. This is a rare skill.

I have surfed with Neville’s sister Phillipa and niece Michelle.

I have surfed Bruce’s at solid 6 to 10 feet in cyclone Demonia and when the Oceanos went down.

I have surfed Huletts and Left Overs from 5-foot perfection to 2-foot easy rollers.

All of this began in 1981 when I surfed in my first SAU (SA Universities) at nearby Seal Point. I am comfortable to claim my space here.

As I enter the coffee shop, I am greeted by a replica of Shaun Tomson’s famous pink banana, signed by the man himself.

In 1974 in the early days of Tomson’s conquest of the world, a board was made by Spider Murphy at Safari Surfboards for Shaun to surf in Hawaii.

The red pigment used in the resin to make the board was a bit too dark and a dash of white was added to tone it down.

It turned out to be more of a dollop than a dash and the said board came out pink — a very unlikely colour for the day but Tomson was tight for time so he grabbed the board and got on the plane.

More than the bizarre colour, the board had been shaped too flat and the glassing department loaded it with bricks when they glassed it to force more curve or rocker into the board.

Again, a little bit too much and when Tomson got to Hawaii, somebody laughed at him and asked “where are you going with that pink banana”, amused at the too-much curve.

In a surprise turn of events, the narrow tail 7’10” by 18.5” by 3” pink banana was a hit of serendipity, and Tomson was able to shred the famous waves of Pipeline on it.

In 1975 he won the Pipeline Masters on the board, beating the likes of King of the Pipe Gerry Lopez, Rory Russell, Jackie Dunn, Jeff Crawford and Mike Armstrong.

The pink banana is up in the coffee shop, partly in homage to Safari Surfboards pioneer and ex-Springbok coach Graham Hynes, now 96 years old and living in St Francis.

I think it is a joy that we celebrate Hynsie while he is still with us.

Thus it would seem that my cup of coffee with Ernie has been 45 years in the brewing since my first SAU at Seal Point (sponsored by Mainstay cane spirit — now that was not a good idea).

It is great to sit down, take a sip and drown in nostalgia.

I can only quote Joe Walsh from the band at the time, The Eagles: “Life’s been good to me so far.”

Otherwise said: “So good, so good” — James Brown.