Stand Up Paddling with Seals

A Sunday out of Hout Bay, freediving and then SUPping with Cape Fur Seals.

Thank you to Steve from Animal Ocean for boating, filming and smiling!

Music: 'I like Giants' by the lovely Kimya Dawson

Sharks, Surfers and Deep Blue Water!

From ice to rolling green hills covered in sugarcane! The KwaZulu Natal coastline has really crept into my heart. Once a month I am teaching a volley of courses up on the tropical side of our beautiful country. The water is a clear rolling blue, the trees are a vivid green and the people are as diverse as the sand is white.
I am working together with Mark and Gail Addison from Blue Wilderness just south of Umkomaas, and together with their supercrew- Marcus, James and Goodman, I've been introducing many new freedivers to the lure of the deep!
I love this Zuluwonderland and as much as Cape Town holds my heart, a small part of me has definitely taken root up east.

A usual week in KZN includes numerous one-day courses- a crash course in the mental and physical intricacies that is freediving; an advanced day of deeper dives for those who have done the course the previous visit; and also, the opportunity for those who have done the course to come out on a shark dive! Aliwal Shoal offers a smorgåsbord of black-tips, Zambezi's, Tiger Sharks, Dusky Sharks, Raggies... not even to mention the whale sharks, dolphin, turtles and other ocean friends.

It is always the greatest pleasure to take as active ocean user as a surfer is, and showing them these toothy friends... a shift happens when somebody gets to hang out with over 30 sharks in close proximity and realise 'they don't want to eat me!'


Look forward to many more days of blue green rolling waves, hills and sharky friends!

Sweden Ice Freediving!

A Sunday in Sweden, a group of Freedivers, an idea.

A lake.
A cold Winter...
....a love of water so strong, nothing can stop us!



Warm heart... cold everything else!

Thank you Christian, Kent, Sofia and Henrik for an unforgettable day!
Filmed above and under water on my Olympus TOUGH.

Over under Ocean Adventures: enter NAISH!

The last few days I have been walking on clouds... and water! Naish have given me a beautiful, brand new, fantastic STAND UP PADDLE BOARD! She is yellow, 9 foot tall, quite slim- and I have named her Beastie.

About to enter the water at Kommetjie for Beastie's virgin paddle... and many laughs!

I tried SUPping (as Stand up Paddling is fondly known as) for the first time last year at Earth Wave in Muizenberg, and from the moment my feet touched that deck, I was hooked. I have been a passionate (yet amateur) surfer for a couple of years, but this was something altogether different and magical. It is like walking on water. Back straight, knees slightly bent, chin up... one paddle and you glide along the surface as if you're an ancient Ocean Goddess or River Queen!

Wilderness lagoon, sunset paddle... magic!

It truly is an exhilarating experience! As the board is bigger than a normal longboard, you can catch waves further out and have a longer ride. But I must say, it's the moments between the waves that are transformed into the most incredible ocean encounters...

I intend to use Stand Up Paddling not only as a way to catch waves, but another way of exploring my greatest love, the ocean. I ended 2009 in Wilderness up the east coast of SA where we SUPped at Buffelsbay catching sweet little waves, up the Kaaimans river to the waterfall, family paddling around the lagoon and catching dodgy waves under the bridge.
This is truly an exciting way of approaching the sea!

Family paddling on the Kaaimans River! The more the merrier!

I plan to do all manner of aquatic adventures together with new friend Beastie: catching waves, longer river paddles, expeditions out to sea visiting islands and sea friends- strap a mask to your board and the ocean is your oyster!

The unforgettable day Jeannie and I met the friendliest Dusky Dolphins in all of the Atlantic Ocean, paddling off Glen Beach

Bring on 2010, not only under- but on top of the water!

For more info on boards and learning, check out www.sup-culture.com

The Most Perfect Day

Two like-minded ocean-loving girls, two boards, two paddles... a plan to do a long paddle from Camps Bay around to Sea Point... but the ocean had another plan for us...

Filmed on my Olympus TOUGH