Early morning surf session produced some sweet, smallish waves. With the sun rising into my face I wasn’t able to pick Bob out from the 15 or 20 other surfers until I watched him on the wave for a second, then, even in silhouette, I could recognize his style. Although the morning ocean generated a fair number of waves, the most spectacular thing were the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dolphin. For miles, running up and down the coastline and as far out to sea as I could see, were families, pods, hoards and masses of dolphin. I believe there are two species: Common and Bottlenose. They were jumping, feasting, pirouetting, or just swimming along in their rise and dive style. Many came in close to the shore and surfed the waves at Super-Tubes. At times, the peak was so thick with black clad men and dark grey dolphins, all going after the same wave, that I wondered if there might be collisions. Of course the dolphin dropped in on any surfer they wanted, sometime two or three dolphin together, and they out surfed even the best guys in the water. I was so envious of Bob, who, at times, had half a dozen dolphin within a boards length of him. Bob has surfed with dolphins on many an occasion in the past but he said he’s never had an experience quite like the one in Jeffrey’s Bay today. The combination of the rising sun, warm breeze, birds singing, dolphins and men in love with the ocean, bonding, made for the perfect send-off.

 

We had a late, last breakfast at the Greystone Guesthouse, made a stop at the bank to change money, then hopped back on the N2 highway and headed north. We plan to hit the Transki (Trans sky, now called the Wild Coast but formerly a South African Homeland), in a day or two. Then we’ll push on to Durban for a night or two, then power drive the coastal route into Mozambique.