[imagesource: YouTube / Dean Bannatyne]
The past week has been an absolute scorcher across the Western Cape.
Congrats to anybody who braved the beach this weekend.
There’s a temperature threshold at which I consider it better to stay indoors around air-con or a fan and we crossed it.
Aside from that, we’ve also seen some gigantic waves battering the coast – so much so that last Wednesday was dubbed ‘Big Wednesday’ after the legendary 70s surf film.
SAPeople spoke with Dean Bannatyne who captured some stunning footage from Sunset Reef:
According to Dean, the ocean waves were at least 20 to 30 foot high.
The Big Wave Tow surfers filmed include Andrew Marr, Josh Redman and Jacques Theron.
Dean says: “It was just too big and crazy to paddle, so everyone was tow surfing on the day. A day to never forget, crazy respect to all the riders and safety crew out there on the day!”
Dungeons may be the most talked-about big wave spot around Cape Town, but Sunset Reef is where big wave surfing in South Africa really began:
The waves really were quite something, as drone footage shared by Tim Eccles shows:
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The Atlantic Seaboard was also battered by big waves:
Massive swell at Bantry Bay, Cape Town. 19 January 2022. pic.twitter.com/W8Aq3kqeA0
— ROBYN IN THE HOOD (@robynhoodcpt) January 19, 2022
How about this for a crazy photo?
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The swell was so intense it eventually broke off a large section of a shipwreck named the Antipolis, a Greek oil tanker that ran aground off Oudekraal in July 1977, and washed it into the rocks:
The MV Antipolis has arisen from the depths due to the powerful swells smashing our coastline this week. Nature is WILD!! #capetown#MVAntipolis pic.twitter.com/c1pufq0jzk
— Mike Eloff (@LifeOfMikeZA) January 21, 2022
So what caused this, exactly? It wasn’t the volcanic eruption in Tonga, reports IOL:
South African Weather Service (SAWS) senior marine scientist Marc de Vos said the swells were the result of a big storm in the Southern Ocean – a mid-latitude cyclone, to be exact.
“Winds associated with the storm blew strongly over a large area of the ocean, generating large waves. These waves continue to radiate outward from their source, reaching our coastline on Wednesday,” said de Vos…
“Our records indicate that this was indeed very rare. We noted only one such occurrence in 19 summers (in statistical speak, roughly a one-in-twenty year event),” said de Vos.
News24 stated that the “high energy waves” were “also be fuelled by spring tide”.
Hope all you big wave fans got pitted (so pitted) last week.
