Snow Dreams in Africa

The snow season in South Africa has been a good one this year. The Afriski park has never looked better and the level of riding has been blowing up accordingly. After the show at Quiksnow, the park crew and some mates got to ride some weekends and Lebo was there to capture and edit the action for us. I really like this edit!

snow dreams from lebogang rasethaba on Vimeo.

Captain Kai's World on www.2ov.fm - Quiksnow & US Open Podcast

Broadcast from Johannesburg Studio for the very first time as we were coming back from Quiksnow 2012 in Lesotho. I was joined in studio by Dustin from Skull Candy, Ryan van der Spuy from Locally Whipped, JoJo Krivec from Slovenia and the Quiksnow 2012 Champion, who came with manager and Olympic Snowboard judge, Iztok Sumatic. I also had Mikey February live from California talking about the US Open of Surfing and his travels on the West Coast of the USA. Enjoy the show and remember to listen in every Monday evening 6-8pm (CAT) on www.2ov.fm

Download or Listen to the Podcast here - PODCAST QUIKSNOW & US OPEN

Quiksnow 2012 Final Day Action - Afriski Lesotho

JoJo Krivec on his way to Quiksnow Boss! (Photo: Quiksilver/Patto)

Another awesome day of snowboarding went down at Quiksnow 2012. The Afriski Park was the perfect playground for the Pro Mens Final. Defending Champion, JoJo Krivec was in amazing form, considering he has just come off 5 months of injury, to win the competition. Marcin Jekot fought off the youngsters to once again be the SA Slopestyle Champion. His sister, Marta, once again won the ladies and new kid on the block, Jan Linze Veenstra took down the Freeski title. Enjoy the video and get to Afriski!

Results Quiksnow 2012 
Snowboarding Amateurs
1) Davo Philips 2) Michael Rassmann 3) Alessio Lacovig
Snowboarding Women
1) Marta Jekot 2) Brigitte Heeb 3) Vanessa Jackson
Freeski Men
1) Jan Linze Veenstra 2) James Barret 3) Dale Andrews
Snowboarding Pro Men
1) JoJo Krivec (Slovenia) 2) Marcin Jekot (Gold SA) 3) Luke Dutton (Silver SA)
4) Dean van Greunen (Bronze SA)

Quiksnow 2012 Day 1 Highlights

Ryde Jones Backflip (Photo: Quiksilver/Patto)

Check out all the action from the Park at 3600m above Sea Level. Welcome to Afriski and the 2012 Quiksnow SA Snowboarding Champs. Day 1 saw some great riding in the newly extended Park. The foreign contingent were raving about the condition of the Park, so check out all the action from Day 1...

Quiksnow Preview 2012

That's right kiddies, the most mayhem filled weekend of the year is upon us! Snow, altitude sickness, boarding, airs, rails, booze and crazy antics are on the way for Quiksnow 2012. Since 2005 this event has ruled the roost as the most fun Action Sports event of the year. judging by the pictures i have been seeing of the Park at Afriski, this is going to be a stellar year, with all of the top SA riders attending, some crazy new junior riders and of course the usual mix of international chargers that make the trip out to the Southern Tip of Africa. I will be there to bring you all the mayhem first hand!

In the meantime enjoy the teaser for this year, which I just made!

Southern Tip Snowboarding - Winter is almost here...

Yes happy snow fans of the deep south of Africa, summer draws to a close and the winter approaches. Judging by the last few winters and the insanely hot summer, I am calling a winter of dumps and Pow! So to get you into the mood, here is a great little edit from last year's Quiksnow SA Champs, by our man, Lebo. I cannot recommend enough, how good Afriski has become and what a great time can be had at the Quiksnow weekend. Book soon, places are minimal.

theGoodLife Show 3 - Best Action Sports Show in SA - Supersport 5, Wed 21 Sept, 7:05pm

Believe it, it is here! SA's best and only core action sports show, theGoodLife, is back with Episode 3. In this episode we cover Quiksnow, the SA Snowboarding Champs, theTand Bodyboarding Classic, Jungle Rush Masters of Dirt FMX Qualifiers and a short teaser for the new Wakeboarding Film, Tropical Roast.

Premier: Supersport 5, Wednesday 21 September, 7:05pm

Check out the Teaser:

You can win insane prizes from Quiksilver, Fox and DC - just post your favorite Action Sports video on Youtube on our Facebook Page.

July in South Africa is pretty Mental

Shew - yes that's right, shew! I feel like I just ran multiple marathons down here in the Dirty South of South Africa. Every year I try get ready for July, think I am prepared, but I never am. It's supposed to be winter and slow and quiet, but that's not how it works in SA. So here is a little run down of how July 2011 nearly finished your Captain.

The Mr Price Pro in Ballito was mental! Waves, surfing and the jol. John John Florence charging.

So at the start we had the Mr Price Pro in Ballito. Not only did I arrive on the biggest day of competition and get to witness tube riding like it had never been seen in South Africa, we also got to see some truly impressive wipe outs and bomb sets. Went and got hammered with the Twig man and his lady, Kate, at our man Wok's jol. Was a little quiet that party, but it did not stop us from getting pretty loose at the bar. Culprit number 1, Mr Ard Mathews of Just Jinger fame. The man drinks more tequila than a Mexican plantation worker on the day of the dead! This was also not the last we would see of Mr Mathews...

John John paying the band - how big you reckon that white water is?

Saturday was back to the Mr price for the finals. Waves started off mental, but kind of dissapeared towards the final. Still good surfing to see though and Pat G was the eventual winner. Pack up my shit and jump in the cabby, off to North Beach to catch the Red Bull X-Fighters with "Sick" Nick de Wit and crew. Got there just in time to film the show - the boys were busting down! Nick threw about 4 new back flip combos I had not seen before, it was mental. Few beers with Andy Mork to get the hangover out and it was off to the ZigZag surfing Awards...

We like promo girls!

Shew, this bike is bliksems heavy! 

Photogs at work - convo in the back - Hey Wok wanna ride bikes? Wok - Hell NO!

The ZigZag surf awards was a fun night. Thank the lord for Luke Patterson though, without his chirps through the evening I might well have fallen asleep. Some of our older surfers could well use an introduction to how to make thank you speeches. A certain big wave surfer, hall of Fame inductee, spoke so much  ##### no one knew what was going on. All was not lost though, as Sean Thompson made a great speech and really pumped up the crowd about how proud we should be as South African surfers. the Black Label flowed and people were getting pretty trollied. Twig puled the plug and we got to bed early and surfed epic waves the next day.

Twig and Kate looking pretty dam retro for the Surf Awards!

Oh and then there was the Riot Jam BMX - by this time I was on auto pilot till I got back to Cape Town.

BMX at the Riot Jam.

Ok, so deep breaths back to work, then i get the call to drop everything and head up to Jbay for the Billabong Pro Music Festival to MC. Sure, why not. Chris Mason from Wavescape jumped in with me and we blazed up to Jbay getting there at 6:30pm, just in time for me to walk on stage and start the festival. Thus started a 3 nights of mayhem, with no surfing happening due to small swell. Some of the suspects who caused the drunken chaos were Luke Patto, Dutchy, Sasha Specker (I know!), Tyrone Rawlins and of course Dennis the Menace himself, Brad Masters, fresh from Bali.

Hard at work! (Photo: Mason)

Working even harder with Dennis the Menace! (Photo: Spex)

The bands that threw down over the 3 day period were definately AKing on Friday, PhFat went mental on the Saturday (The crowd were getting so loose the security fence almost got taken out.) and Jeremy Loops and Jack Parow finished us off in style on the Sunday. Every member of a band had drinks with us, but Ard Mathews that evil man of sultry music was once again the destroyer in carnate of the weekend! He is in some of these photos, but like an evil vampire you cannot see him! Beware! haha Boy were we slain for 3 days.

There was pretty much a ratio of 2 gals to 1 boy! (Photo: Spex)

Parow and Brandy & Coke, not much more I can say - Oh the boys were all perving his doll hard! true Story! (Photo: mason)

It was getting animated at the bar each night! Spex and I telling stories! (Photo: Mason)

The Champ and his lady, keeping it tidy! (Photo: Mason)

I got back to Cape town feeling like had been stuck in prison for 2 weeks and been considered some big black dude's bitch! The flu struck and I was man down. But the jol was not over, oh no. The biggest booze fueled orgy of party was still to come and it was at 3600m above sea level - Quiksnow!

Marcin Jekot going invert on the slopes and at the bar!

Ok, but that's enough for now, Quiksnow will be out shortly, in the meantime make sure you watch our Supersport Show tonight at 8pm, on Supersport 7. Lukka, Captain out...

Quiksnow 2011 Preview - Lesotho is covered in Snow

I always get a lot of raised eyebrows when I tell the International community that not only do we have snow in the deep south of Africa, but a hard core (More core in the bar maybe?) snowboard crew and our own National Champs. But believe it my guy, cause it is true! For the last 7 years I have been involved with the Quiksnow SA Snowboarding Champs and it has always been an amazing event.

This year we have been blessed with days of snowfall prior to this weekend's festivities and at this point many of us are simply hoping we will be able to get into the mountains of Lesotho to Afriski - the Southern African Snow resort. I leave from Cape Town this evening, on the mammoth 14 hour drive mission, oping to get some riding in tomorrow afternoon, prior to the trials on Friday and the finals and usual anarchic party on Saturday. So expect sporadic updates from the 3600m above sea level resort of mayhem and party! Our theGoodLife crew will be there to shoot for our Supersport Show and we will no doubt have some good footage to show you soon.

In the meantime, check out footage from my last filming trip to the highlands...