Movember - Hairy Lips are back!

It's official, I am joining the Movember movement. What this means, is that as of Monday, I will be sporting a clean shaven face for the first time in many a month, or even year. I will then proceed to grow fur on my top lip till the end of November - why you ask? All for ball and prostate cancer of course - the ladies have pink ribbons, we men have Mo's! Bottom line is, or maybe this time it's the top line? haha The MO will grow!

Are you brave enough?

The Classic Magnum MO

How did this all come about?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Movember (a portmanteau of the words 'moustache' and 'November'), is an annual month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November. The event has been claimed to have been invented in 1999 by group of Australian men from Adelaide.
Since 2004, the Movember Foundation charity has run Movember events to raise awareness and funds for men's health issues, such as prostate cancer and depression, in Australia and New Zealand. In 2007, events were launched in Ireland, Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 
Origins
Seven Nightly News aired a story in 1999 featuring a group of young men in Adelaide who claimed to have had come up with idea of growing moustaches for charity in what "snowballed into a Mo-phenomenon, with people across Australia joining up".^[1]
In the news report, members of the Adelaide-based "Movember Committee" explained how they came up with the idea for Movember one night in the pub. The group was said to have 80 men from Adelaide and interstate involved in the event, and aimed to raise money for the RSPCA through selling T-shirts in what they termed "Growing whiskers for whiskers".^[1]
Seven News also reported that the Committee had received legal threats from a San Francisco-based group called the "Moustache Celebration Federation" that had claimed they had patented the term "Movember" in 1977.^[1] A 2007 statement on the Committee's website states that upon following up on these threats it was discovered that neither The Federation, nor its alleged president, "Charles Kies III", actually existed. The Committee still holds their claims of having coined the term Movember in 1999 are "100% true".^[2]

Even famous people are doing it!

<sup>You can join the movement here - Movember SA


Or you can donate here - CANSA


Or join the fun on Facebook - Facebook Group</sup>

World Surf Games won by hosts, Peru!

The World Surf Games in Peru came to an end yesterday in fine style, with the relatively small surf community of the host nation winning team Gold. This was a massive success for the peruvian surf culture and can only hope to grow the sport on the west coast of South America.

Casey Grant

Altogether, 31 countries, with 220 surfers in their teams competed through a total of 250 heats. An amazing statistic in itself.

 Chantelle Rautenbach

Team South Africa did not let us down, with Chad du Toit, Casey Grant, Chantelle Rautenbach, Stacey Guy and Mathew Moir all ending up in the final stages of competition, leaving Team South Africa with the Bronze medal.

Surf Heaven turns to Surf Chaos

Heaven is turned asunder! Thats whats happened to a number of surfers travelling in the Mentawai Island Chain off of Sumatra, Indonesia. Considered the best wave hunting trip on the planet due to the amount of world class waves in the area, coupled with a super high swell window. I, myself, have done the coveted boat trip to these Islands and what a trip it was!

Unfortunately for the surfers and the people of of the Islands, there was a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in the area last night which caused a Tsunami. Resorts and villages were submerged, people flocked to the Islands high points and some surfers even needed to climb trees (Check this Link). Two surf charter boats are missing and up to 10 Australian surfers. South African surf travel company, All Aboard, reports that all their South African clients are accounted for, with no deaths or missing people.

You can find out more here - Sidney Morning Herald

In order to help the people of the Islands please support Surf Aid

Surf Aid Org

We obviously hope that the death toll is much lower than the last time this happened and that all the people of Sumatra and those traveling in the area will be alright.

Zaffers dominating early round of World Surf Games

Looks like Wok, Casey and Chad are on a mission to win the gold once again for team South Africa at the World Surfing Games. All 3 have made it through to round 3 of the competition.

Check out Round 1 action -

World Surfing Games - Round 1 Video

The Portugal Bells Beach delivers for Quik Pro Day 2

I am amazed at how similar this beach in Portugal looks and rides like the famous Bells beach in Victoria, Australia. Looks like the guys have been having super fun waves for the 6 star Quik Pro. Take a look at the day 2 high lights here -

The new age of South Africa

So many people wonder whats happening in this new South Africa we call home. Questions about racism, hate speech, violence and xenophobia seem the norm. It's all a smoke screen though, pushed by the media in their endless pursuit to justify the need for news. Shock, awe and horror are their license for your interest.

Unfortunately for them, its no longer the reality. The new South Africans, my generation and those coming behind us, are on a different wave length. We don't care about race and what makes us different. We care about good times, good friends, good music and loving the country we were born in. We want to build a place where we all get along, where free speech means FREE and we want to be creative to do what we want to do, when we want to do it. This may come as somewhat of a surprise to the naysayers, but hell, they deserve every ugly, nasty surprise they can get! Yes there is violence and hate, but to be honest it's a Planetary problem, not just ours.

Viva SA, viva the new revolution!

This track by Bittereinder, featuring Jack Parow and Tumi Molekane, sums it up for me! Thanks dudes!

theGoodLife

So many people ask me what theGoodLife is, that I had to actually get my ass crack in gear and get this shindig on the road. So soon, very soon, you will all get a taste! In the meantime make sure you are in Cape Town 11th December 2010 - for the super awsome launch event!

In the meantime, you will just have to watch this and get a sneak preview!

theGoodLife on Vimeo

Check out our new Vimeo Channel and add your xtreme videos!

Eskom wants to destroy our Culture!

Having grown up in the quaint and bustling holiday town of St Francis Bay, it was with quite a lot of horror and rage that I learnt of Eskom's (South Africa's totalitarian and competitor free power supplier) plans to build a Nuclear Power Station in the Eco sensitive Thyspunt. This is one of the last places on our Eastern Seaboard that is still untouched by development or bloody water sucking golf courses! To replace this nirvana of nature and fynbos with nuclear plant simply gets my gall up.

So, it was with great joy and rapture that I read this article which appeared in the Weekend Post, Port Elizabeth, over the weekend -
Weekend Post Article - Delight, joy as nuke plant rejected
 
The main story in the article is that the South African heritage council, working alongside the San people, have blocked Eskom's plans, due to the wide distribution of ancient San traps at the location - which would be destroyed due to the development of the Nuclear Plant and certainly become inaccessible to people wanting to experience a part of our history. Happy days, or so we think...

Three days later and the following article appears in the Herald Newspaper -
Herald Article - Eskom’s Thyspunt nuclear plant study continues
Which basically states that Eskom does not care about the Heritage Council's findings and will continue their own investigations into the feasibility of the project. Once again the corporate giant thinks little of anything except profit and growth - even if it is at the cost of our own heritage and natural bounty.

There are so many reasons for them to stop this from happening, but Eskom it seems are blind to our concerns!

Many animals who call the bay home - such as Olly the Otter, who spent a morning with us frolicking in the rocks in front of the proposed site - will lose their homes and feeding areas. The San will lose one of their largest heritage sights!



Stop the Nuclear madness go to -
SMS “Supertubes” to 38665 (SA) at a cost of R 10.

Men who fight sharks

My good mates Frank Solomon and James Taylor are sailing across the Indian Ocean from SA. They just got to the Maldives, where apparently they have been scoring some epic waves.

What do they do on flat days or when the are becalmed?

Seems swimming with agro deep water sharks is the call - think I will leave this to them...

Cape surfers march on Japanese Embassy

Led by the well known brothers, Con and Greg Bertish, a multitude of Cape Town surfers and supporters marched on the Japanese Embassy in Cape Town. The reason? Well it was not the proliferation of sushi bars in the mother city, but the yearly slaughter of thousands of dolphins in Japan.

You can get more info here - Wavescape

SandCrab on a roll!

All the talk in SA Surfing has been about Jordy Smith, which is not surprising considering he is the most phenominal surfer in quite some time. But we often forget that there are other surfers from our great southern shores that are also representing us on the greatest of surf tours. One of these unsung heroes is, Travis Logie.

Travis has had a really unlucky year, thus far, with a couple of really close heats going against him. He just managed to make the cut off mid way through the year by the skin of his teeth and he really needs a few good results to stay on the premier world tour. Enter the Rip Curl Pro Portugal! Travis has taken out world number 5, Dane Reynolds in Round 2, and in a even bigger result gave it to World Number 3, Mick Fanning in Round 3. Lets hope the sandcrab can keep the roll going! Check him takin out Mick here:

DC riders dominate XGames

This has got to be one of the better online videos I have seen in a while. The DC Threesome dominate XGames in the MotoX disciplines - going larger than life! Check out Travis Pastranas' double back flip - its simply madness!

Southern Secrets

Our coastline is literally loaded with secret and half known wave locations. With almost 5000km of coast this not that surprising really. What is surprising is how many surfers just don't have their own little secret. They are happy to just surf their local town spots, with the crowds and perhaps head up the coast for a weekend from time to time to surf another well know spot with half the people he surfs with normally back in town.

That's why I love this little video from our man in the Southern Cape, Llewellyn Whittaker. After spending a reasonably long time in the UK representing for team zaffer, he is now home again in Mossell Bay, where he runs his Waves surf school. Clearly, Llew is not scared to search, not scared to leave the well known on a day there are waves, in order to score epic waves all to his self! Just check the stoke, its not hard to see...

Aah the Old School

Today I have 2 great videos for you to take a gander at. They both represent the old school for me, while still showing that the power of great surfing and music will never fail.
First off there is this video from Rip Curl, showcasing Tom Curren and Frankie Oberholzer. These guys were my hero's when I was a grom and to see them both ripping apart these waves in Indonesia is incredible. Tom was always the smoothest cat in the water, but its watching Frankie surf that really blows me away. He is still surfing as good if not better than in those original Search videos. Original Search videos? Check this out -

Now Rip Curl have a boat exploring the entire Indinesian Island Chain in their Tip2Tip campaign. They reunited Tom and Frankie and the waves were so good, they ended up staying for an extra week. Frankie is still just the surf stoked grom! Love it.

Hope enjoyed!
Captain Kai

Crazy man jumps off of Chapman's Peak

What makes a man jump off a cliff face? To be honest I don't know and you would have to ask our mate Leander, who takes great joy in jumping off of very high things. Just yesterday morning he became the first person to Base Jump off of Chapmans Peak in a Fox suit - no this is not a suit that makes you more foxy for the opposite sex, it has wing like attachments and enables the jumper to fly more horizontilay. I think.

Check the video out, its madness I tell you:

Feel the LoVE

Our pals from Austria, Seppi and Marc, who are both completely crazy and snowboard like juiced up chipmunks on meth - are launching their new snowboard and skate movie in mid November. Last years "Loveolution" was pretty epic and I can only say that version 2 should be great!

Check out the trailer -



Seppi, or Doctor Love, says the following about the new movie:
"Our whole Teammovie project is nearly finished! So far i think it will be a good step up from last years movie, in all subjects such as: riding, film quality and of course acting.. :)
Also we have 3 more riders in our LOVE team this season. (icelandic gulli gudmundsson, Swiss markus keller and from USA: mike casanova) all of them also worked good to get some good shots for Loveolution2!
The movie was shot i think all around the world. Having it s focus on riding and entertainment! :) The music will be a good mix of everything i think."

I have supported Love for a couple of years now, they make sick T's, Hoodies, Skate boards and snowboards - plus the ladies will literally offer themselves for the stickers, I kid you not!

You can see their website here - LOVE

LOVE YOURSELF

Captain Kai

Skate 4 Change

1800km's of skating on African National roads, over 3 months? That's just nuts I hear you say. To tell you the truth, I agree, its bloody insane! But, that,s exactly what our china, Puddy Zwennis, is doing for charity. All of the proceeds go to the SOS Children's Village, in South Africa.

You can follow the madness here

Skate for Change

Or simply sms "Puddy" to 38655 (South Africa) to make a R10 donation!

Check it out -



The guys are having a huge party in November at Mercury live in Cape Town, come join me - its gonna rock!!!

Skate 4 Change Party