G-Land Surf was fairly average sort of size today. About 3ft most of the morning. A nice tradewind kicked in mid morning and it was blowing offshore all day after that. Through the afternoon there were some nice 3-4ft sets coming through down Money Trees at G-Land.
G-Land Bobby's Surf Camp have 'Happy Hour' each day down at the beach. Where after 4pm a beer fridge is wheeled down, and we all drink beer whilst watching the waves peel off into the sunset.
An unfortunate thing I witnessed today while drinking my beer (and this is an ongoing problem for many years that really needs to be dealt with) was people from the surf camp close to the boat channel riding a zodiac out into the surf. Any person that has been to G-Land before will testify to how bad a practice this is. For a start, the boat-babies jump in a group into the boat. Then they get the boat captain to drive them way up the line up and drop them off at a location where they can all jump off the zodiac and paddle in their pack straight into pole position up the point. Driving the boat up past all the other surfers causes boat-wake. This boat wake lasts at least 5 minutes and ruins all the set waves coming in. And then the boat shoots back past again on the way back to the boat channel, causing another 5-10mins of boat wake just as the last wake is starting to settle. So an easy 15mins of surf time is absolutely ruined by a group of selfish lazy uneducated boat-takers! Although the said camp is the main culprit, I have also witnessed people from our camp and the 3rd camp do this too from time to time. As a surf guide at Bobby's I do my best to educate guests about the poor surf etiquette of boat taking.
So while drinking my beer, I watch 15mins of the last 30mins of daylight totally violated by boat wake. Every surfer got clamped by the warped barrel, or bounced off their boards, or flipped over the falls. G-Land is dangerous enough when it is perfect, let alone with a dirty boat wake ripping up the sets. All guests pay money to come and surf G-Land, so boat wake is causing guests to lose money as sets get totally ruined. And why do guests pay to come to G-Land? To Surf the amazing waves. So when the amazing waves come through ruined by boat wake, what happens? The guest loses money, and is put in danger by the boat wake! Not to mention the unnatural crowding a pack of boat babies cause when they jump off and paddle in a pack to their chosen spot up the point.
I've kept quiet about boat taking so far this season after alot of effort last year to have it curbed. But this past week it has been getting overboard, and its just going to far. With a whole week of big swells coming, it's time for anti-boat action! Please leave comments or suggestions about this subject! Even a drop-zone down past speedies will be fine. If they want to surf Kongs, they can paddle from the end of speedies, all the way up. Because thats just how it should be if you want to be a boat baby.
