We drove to Durban this morning. It is a very large city with a significant Indian population. It is the biggest city we’ve been in since Cape Town so it was quite a change of pace. Somehow we made it through all the confusing highways and streets to end up at the waterfront. We were standing on the end of one of the three piers where surfers plied the waters, hoping we might, by luck, spot Bob’s buddy, Graeme, but it seemed like looking for a needle in a haystack to me. All of a sudden Graeme paddled up to the end of the pier and sent a big hello our way. After a bit of chatting, Bob ran back to the car, donned his wetsuit, and joined Graeme in the water for a decent, late morning surf session. Graeme had to go to work so they didn’t get to surf together for long but it was pleasant for them to share the water for a bit since it has been 14 years since they last surfed together. I walked along the boardwalk area taking in all the interesting and varied people, and spent some time photographing Bob. It is a great set up for photography because I’m right on top of the surfers when standing at the end of the pier. We got to Graeme’s house up on a hill over looking downtown Durban and met his wonderful 15 year old son, Dillon, who showed us to our nice guestroom.

I hadn’t had a shower in a few days so I washed my hair, then we walked a few blocks to a funky commercial area to have a coffee, get on the Internet, and buy fruit for a big salad that would be our contribution to the little dinner party Graeme and his new wife, Kerstin, were having that evening. Back home we visited with Graeme and Kerstin until guests started showing up. We had a fun evening with about six other surfers showing up (one with a girlfriend). The purpose of the evening (after eating a good pasta dinner) was to watch some raw video footage of some really good surf sessions at Jeffrey’s Bay. A couple of the guests were pro surfers and some of the footage was of them. A lot of it was Kelly Slater (my favorite pro) just surfing for fun at J-Bay a week after the big pro contest was over. However, 2 hours into it I had to retire to bed. Bob straggled in near midnight.