Awhile back I discussed South Africa’s Garden Route along its southern coastline (click here) and thought of another tour hi lite: Cape St. Francis the site of the perfect wave in the movie Endless Summer.
When Buzzy and I were there, our tour guide told us a surf story that occurred in that area. Seems that as the surfers would venture out to surf for the day, monkeys from the surrounding hills would come down and sit on the surfers’ parked cars and watch them surf. When one of the surfers purchased a new car he tried to scare the monkeys off from sitting on his car by placing a rubber snake on the car. However, it backfired on him as he paddled out to surf and watched the monkeys sit on the hillside and proceed to pelt his car with rocks as they tried to stone the snake! They ruined his car before he could make it back in and remove the snake. Another case of the cure being worse than the disease!
Keeping with surfing, the picture at the left “Longboard and Girl at Sunset” is from the collection of a famous underwater/surfing photographer named Ron Church – for more info click here.
Ron did his thing back in the 50’s and 60’s and like everything else, surf photography has evolved through the years. However, if you check out some of Mr. Church’s work, see if you don’t agree that his black and white surfing shots seem to have a lot more to say than many of the more dramatic/photo shopped ones of today do. I know the picture at the left sure speaks to me!