Port Alfred to Hamburg

A two-day weather break in Port Alfred, looked after by Rick and Jo-Anne Bretts, relaxing and getting well acquainted with their coffee machine while it rained outside. Thursday morning at 04h30 we gathered at a slipway on the Kowie River – a local doubles team joined for the first 15km, along with Craig Webster, who’d just driven up from Cape Town after the Cape Point Challenge.

The southwesterly pushed us up the coast with building wind chop. The forecast was for 5.5m swells and 40-knot gusts by afternoon, so we needed to be off the water in time – we made it to Hamburg just ahead of the big swell and wind.

We had a three-day weather rest at a secret spot halfway between Port Alfred and Hamburg, staying in a house lent to us by Gus and Viv Laverge, neighbours of friends who couldn’t otherwise put us up. The forecast buster arrived as predicted and turned the ocean and the dunes upside down, sand working its way into the house through every gap. We spent the time beachcombing for oysters at low tide. Next paddling day: Hamburg towards East London.