Its been a great week here in Cape Town leading up to Christmas, loads of wind and waves and sunshine!! We’ve had some great jumping days at Big Bay and Sunset, my backies are starting to get a lot more consistent and i’m managing get higher as well. The riding has been ok not amazing but the usual Cape Town 1 hit wonder style!

This year i have brought out two up and coming guys so that they can train and get ready for the 2012 assault on the world freestyle tour and the Uk wave tour. Youp Schmit is the future star of the JP/Neil Pryde freestyle team. Already claiming the under 18 world champion title. Cape Town a great pace for him to train as the conditions are lot more hardcore than in his homespot of Bonaire. The wind is a lot stronger which gives him the chance to get used to his small sails ready for the Canaries events and having the waves right on the doorstep means he can train some jumping as well. He has been sailing pretty sick with all the new usual moves including some big Kabikuchis!

Alesky or Lecky Gayda is the 2011 UK Amateur wave champion and is fully ripping this year. He is always super keen to get out on the water and always the first out and last in no matter how big or small it is. He has been fully charging the big ones down and smacking some big lips! Unfortunately for him the other day he got smacked back by a big lip resulting in a nice gash above his eye! Like me last year he is on the pushloop mission! He’s getting closer and had some good crashes! His riding is improving a lot and backies are getting more consistent.

Living with the boys is quite funny but also quite hard work sometimes! Having one that wants to wavesail all the time and one that wants to freestyle all time usually results in one unhappy teenager! But it means that we get a lot of sessions in which is a good thing and any teenage unhappiness is very short lived. The language barrier also causes much amusement! Both speak english fine but Lecky’s strong essex accent and Youp’s Carribean/Bonairean style accent means that understanding what eachother says is pretty much impossible and i end up having to translate everything! My cooking skills are getting pretty good though as the boys don’t cook anything apart from eggs!!

Christmas over here is really different from at home. Its really hard to get into the Christmas spirit as the wind usually takes priority of any plans made. Not that i’m complaining though as it means getting out on the water! We had a more fun than expected session at Sunset with some nice stunt ramps for jumping. Followed on later by an awesome braai (bbq) and fun games with Little Joe and Karen, Bish and Charlotte, Greg and Sandy and the two Robs, Saint and Partridge. We did secret santa as well and people went all out on the presents!! See pic below with me using mine!

Well thats it for Christmas over here, forecast is looking awesome for next week so stay tuned some video action. Gonna head in to Cape Town now for a mooch around the waterfront and hopefully catch either the new Sherlock Holmes movie or Mission impossible!

Cheers and Merry Christmas to all!!