Surfers stomp a righteous flamenco on South Africa's level 3 lockdown laws…
Ain’t no secret that it’s wild times for South African surfers who want to ride or even examine waves.
One month ago at Jeffreys Bay, a man was arrested under South Africa’s level 3 lockdown laws for checking the surf with his fourteen-year-old son and, on the beach, two surfers were busted, had their boards confiscated and were threatened with jail time.
Six month ago, beachgoers were forced to flee a Durban beach when cops arrived en masse.
Now, wave-starved surfers in Durban have joined together to circumvent the ban by paddling into the lineup after being deposited beyond the shark nets by boat.
From The Surf HQ, “Today we made a public stand against the silly law allowing surfing as a sport , but making it illegal to walk across the sand to practice our sport. so this is a huge shout out to the 7 brothers who took the BIG risk of coming along for the ride with me knowing full well tonights bed could have been in a jail cell, for chartering a Boat and being dropped out deep sea beyond the shark nets to paddle over them to surf “without touching the sand” for an hour and a half,
paddling all the way back over the nets to get back onto the boat then be Police escorted to Dock to face the Law enforcement officers.”
Oddly electric, yes?
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Have they tried to legally make a stand? Making a petition arguing that surfing, as a solo sport practiced outdoors has minimum chances of spreading the virus. Asking authorities to keep beaches closed but allowing surfing. No idea how things work in SA, would authorities just laugh about it? Or could it work? Why haven’t they tried it yet? Or have they with no success? Pretty fucked up.
How things work here is the government laughs at us while they steal from the public purse. There’s a strong securocrat faction who have taken this opportunity to live out their police state and prohibition fantasies.
They’re not budging to pressure from big alcohol, and in that context the petitions from surfing bodies and other interested parties about irrational beach closures don’t even feature.
Thanks for the article Bex. I feel slightly less aggrieved about being skinned on the Streetboardz switch kickstarter shakedown now. Kirk’s facial hair, fark.
Who let the sponger on the boat?
He was the sacrificial lamb for the paddle.
Why can’t cunts just stay at home like they are asked, it’s not a lot that is being asked of them really! Stay at home and we will all get through this sooner!
Haha get fucked dork.
Yeah fuck everyone else! Dickhead!
You’re about 9 months late for that tired sentiment bud. The worst nihilist ever.
Lockdowns have been proven to work, what is your solution?
That’s a pretty small sample size you are pulling from for successful lockdowns. Isolated, island nations that don’t have open borders have the advantage there. Good for them, but shame on you for being a scared little man. My solution is the one that’s already playing out, a virus will run its course and vulnerable people will die. It’s sad but life is hard and we are all responsible for our own individual health. We are a year in and your still telling people not to go surfing? That seems reasonable to you? That’s really sad and alarming.
That’s the problem right there, callous bastards like you who take no responsibility for your actions, and how your actions affect others. Sweden’s approach has been shown to be misguided, plenty of examples of lockdowns in various countries reducing mortality rates, lockdowns prevent the health systems being overwhelmed, the vaccine rollout is almost here, people just need to stay the course – or they can say ‘fuck everyone else, I’m going surfing”
You are misguided on Sweden’s results. In the states there is virtually no disparity between the ones that had lockdowns vs those that didn’t. I’m not callus, just realistic. Taking responsibility for my actions is exactly what I do, I take very good care of my health and fitness. That is the only thing I can control so that’s what I do. There are already more deadly things lurking out there now that didn’t shut the world down and we’ve learned to mitigate them without halting the world unnecessarily.
Lockdowns have been proven to work all over Europe, preventing health systems to be over run. That’s why we are currently in one here, the hospitals are at or near maximum capacity. If they reach full capacity it will mean no room for car crash victims etc. Lockdowns are a blunt ungainly instrument, but they ensure that the numbers don’t go too high to be able to administer care to those who are sick. It’s pretty simple, and it’s pretty obvious that the onus is on everyone to do their bit, for the benefit of society- whether they are surfers or not
They work so good you are on your fourth or fifth one right? Try not to kill grandma in your 5k square you soft cock
Our third lockdown and yeah they do work, that’s why they keep doing them. What’s your great solution tosser? Nice of you to get personal, but I shouldn’t expect any more of a callous cunt like yourself!
Fuck, read that back again to yourself. Third one, and they do work!!!! You are in permanent hiding from the bogeyman.
The objective of the lockdown here is not to eradicate the virus, it’s to keep the hospitals from reaching maximum capacity, and the resulting increase in mortality that would go with that. Bide time until the vaccine is rolled out. So yeah, they do work!
then there’s Australia…we have NO covid , I ll say it again….NO Covid in Australia , heavy lockdowns, 15 weeks here in Victoria….now we have the Australian open of Tennis , full crowds…..looks like there is a chance for Bells /Australian leg of the WSL tour….which means Australia has saved surfing again , by having a country where no masks no social distancing , no more lockdowns because we listened to the scientists….
So we now live pandemic free as we watch the rest of the world plunge into a Covid pandemic….economies shattered , no real time lines on when there will be something normal again …..so what works…lockdowns!
Yeah, island continent with spread out, remote cities. Congratulations for saying the same thing over and over you senile old fuck.
Couple problems there. 1) letting the virus run means taking chances with mutations. The more people getting it, bigger chance for the virus to find someone that will allow it for a fucked up mutation. And remember how all this started? With one man, one fucked up mutation. That’s all it takes.
2)drugs, masks, oxygen cylinders, etc don’t fall from the sky. There’s something called supply chain. And if there is a possible disruption of the supply chain, getting together on the top of the highest mountain to dance and chant to the gods won’t solve the problem. Although many people seem to think that it is like that. All one has to do is to chant and dance and the stockpiles will be magically replenished.
Nonetheless, it’s pretty weird to keep surfing prohibited at this point in the game.
You’re not a very intelligent fellow are you?!
I have had enough of dumb surfer cunts thinking that the rules don’t apply to them. Where I am there is a 5 km restriction on exercise, and yet everytime I go on Instagram I see some fucker posting about his latest session, often obliviously outside their 5km. If it’s inside your 5km, don’t go rubbing peoples noses in it, and if it’s outside your 5km then you have to ask yourself what would happen if everyone chose the rules they follow. It’s Kantian ethics, it’s not that complicated, follow the fucking rules (annoying as they are) and we will get out of this quicker, with less deaths!
Agreed, but our government has completely fucked up and thrown away any goodwill they had in the beginning.
We all hunkered down in one of the world’s most severe lockdowns in April-May, trusting that our politicians needed the time to get our inadequate health systems ready. This included a blanket booze and cigarette prohibition, the deployment of the army into civilian life, a heavy handed approach to enforcing minor transgressions (countless cases of police brutality and even a number of cases where they murdered citizens) and the most complicated, irrational and constantly changing regulations imaginable as the politicians politicked amongst themselves and used the situation as a factional battleground.
All while the hordes of rotten politicians, their friends and families looted the emergency public funds that were being made available for PPE and relief measures.
They’ve since fucked up our vaccine procurement so we’re stuck like this for at least the rest of this year before any meaningful numbers get vaccinated, at best.
We needed this second lockdown as cases skyrocketed in December, but they’ve fucked it up again. These latest lockdown measures also include a booze prohibition. The beach ban was logical over the late December / early January holiday period, at popular spots. But everyone has long finished their holidaying and now only a few city beaches around the county actually need to be regulated for crowds. But there’s still a national blanket ban in place.
And the police have been instructed to “send a message” via heavily enforcing the beach bans while theft and violent crime continue to run rampant.
So yes, a logical and rational lockdown that everyone should adhere to for a limited time for the greater good = GOOD.
An irrational and disproportionately enforced lockdown while politicians loot the public coffers and bicker amongst themselves = BAD.
Fair enough, incompetent as our politicians are, you couldn’t accuse them of being disproportion or draconian in the measures they have brought in. In many ways our lot have been too soft on a number of things. I’m sorry to hear it is such a mess there at the moment, I had the impression that SA was managing it well – obviously not unfortunately!
You have no idea how incompetent the fucking SAP are. A complete joke.
The waves looked pretty good so maybe worth the fines
The real story there is that apparently most of the complaints to the police came from other surfers. Come on Derek, bring us the dirt! (I hear the photographer involved, Tostee, knows more about who the narcs were)
I have a convenient loophole where I live and surf. A few of our waves are within paddling distance of a harbour wall that we can enter and exit the water from, so that doesn’t qualify as a “beach”. So in the event that the pigs want to throw their weight around and wait for us on the shore, we can just make the paddle back in via the harbour wall.
Last week an eager beaver municipal law enforcement officer (basically a wannabe traffic cop) was so desperate to nail us (all 4 of us, which is as crowded as it gets here) that he issued us with fines for “not wearing a mask while surfing in a public place”, even though we’re excempt from mask wearing during “vigorous exercise”. I’m not going to pay the fine, which would effectively be an admission of guilt and give me a criminal record. It’ll get thrown out before it gets anywhere near a court room.
And I told him my occupation is “Pro Surfer” sponsored by Hurluley, which he recorded in his fines book without question.
I started filming Officer Swinging Dick while he was issuing my fine so I could have evidence of the ridiculousness of it all, and he threatened to arrest me if I didn’t stop. Which of course is bullshit, and I kept filming. The fucker then grabbed my phone from me and deleted the footage. So now I’m busy fighting with the powers that be to get him charged and disciplined for abusing his authority and acting illegally.
I’ve surfed three times since then. They can get fucked if they think they can take my surfing away from me, when it’s been shown to be an almost zero risk activity for transmitting the virus.
The government has crafted such long and complicated regulations that are so difficult to understand and are constantly changing, and these very special humans who have been tasked with enforcing these confusing regulations feel as if they have to show the public that they know what they’re doing, so they just make stuff up as they go in an authoritative tone to try to convince us that they know what’s cooking. And they know we don’t trust them or respect them, which makes them sad so they end up doing stupid shit like this to compensate for their feelings of inadequacy.
Hang in there, matey !
Good hunting my friend!
Cute story and a fun escapade at the piers no doubt. I love the subtle branding plugs in the IG posts but not so much the praise of the pigs for their polite handling of our home grown revolutionaries. Fuck the POPO! Ultimately though the ban is a lesson to those who forget that the majority of Saffer’s are not privileged suburbanites who surf waves not trains for fun.
The real lesson here of course is that Hurluley is a force to be reckoned with.
With an international team roster of one surfer, we are bigger than Gotcha.
Don’t Follow Your Nightmares.
Stay Hurluley Strong
I’d proudly be on the Team.
Press Release: Hurluley is proud to announce the latest member of our prestigious international surfyboard team – Negatron, NZ.
His plumbing skills will also be very useful when the HURLULEY HQ tea room sink backs up.
1st Sponsor ever. So proud, can’t wait to tell Mum.
Surely your first soundbite to the media: “Yeah nah proud to thread a few pipes for the team”
do you worry that if they change the rules to allow using a beach to access the surf there will suddenly be 4000 VALS at your local?
Mercifully, my area is particularly unattractive to VALs
Vasbyt bru. Fok die boere.
What’s the point of a spell checker if you dont use it, trollyboi ?
Pissorf
Jordy’s Pout?
Anything to offer on this?
I just need my morning coffee, then I’ll tell my tale
south african legislation is historically unimpressive…this coming from a white american male
I see Johannesburg born Nev Hyman (Nev Future Shapes and FireWire etc) is in the financial news today.
Apparently Layne Beach, Sally Fitz and their families are among those out of pocket in his third-world housing ‘project’.
Could be worth a look into for a surf adjacent story…
I saw him spruiking it a couple of years ago and was not super impressed. It was very “I’m from FireWire, here’s my next venture sure to be a hit, oh and I’m making pop outs with Surfboard warehouse”.