I will admit, it wasn’t by choice that I ended up in Cape Town for 3 months slap bang in the middle of winter! June, July, August.
But sometimes, work has to take the driving seat.

I remember spending a winter trying to kite in Cape Town about 10 years ago. It was wet, and cold… And I also remembered being disgusted with the kiting conditions. Then again i thought, How bad could it really have been?

There are some radical differences with kiting Cape Town in winter as opposed to summer: The wind mostly comes from the opposite direction, it brings rain, squalls, frontal systems passing through, cold and there are also lots of no wind days

Yeah well it seems that I remembered right.

Cape Town Winter kiting ain’t for the faint hearted. When there is wind, it is gusty, often cross off, the temperatures are cold and the swell is generally big.

With the equipment having evolved a fair amount in 10 years, conditions where more manageable. I mostly rode waves with my Peter Lynn Swell handling all the conditions it encountered. My Underground Mazu prototype got ridden as a thruster fin set up. I will go back to a quad and make some notes.

There were a few positive things…

Every so often you get a good session, and with wind from the right, for wave riding it favors my strong side.
The kiting crowds of the summer days were non existent. I actually had a few solo sessions. At most you had 10 kiters in the water.

The waves can be really nice.
And on the odd occasion you score a really good day, with sunshine and all

As August hit, the Whales showed up lying in really shallow. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many encounters in one session!

I got to spend some time with some friends including Anthony Berzack (featured in some of the pics). He’s been flying the demo Swells and really enjoying them.

I wouldn’t do another winter here out of choice… but there’s still some good sessions to be had. Enjoy the pics, next stop… Cannon Rocks!! Thanks to Denwin Lewis for sharing his photos.