Several days of strong winds had whipped up a big swell. I got to Muizies at 0830 and found a prime parking spot, guided by Charles Mbalanda, the car guard from Congo Kinshasa. Charlie tolerates my rudimentary spoken French, so we always have a little chat about the state of the world. Everyone knows him. He has permanent residence in SA but is still hassled by the police. Bigger waves are harder to catch and also tend to close out along the face. So I moved across into the Corner proper, just below the station where the rocks are. The reef tends to create wave peaks, allowing for more left and right rides. Paddling out was hard work and every now and again a big wave would pitch over just as I reached it, flipping me back in a somersault into the white water churn. Inevitably you swallow a bit of water as you roll around. True, Muizies is a Blue Flag beach but after heavy rains, winter stormwaters bring extra bits of untreated sewage. Once or twice in the past after a day of wipe-outs I've ended up with a spot of dysentery. Hopefully not this time. E.coli is E.coli but so far I haven't grown any extra digits or organs. It's not that I'm precious at all. Rather, I'm in the camp of those who believe that if you drop a bit of food on the kitchen floor you should have no compunction about picking it up and eating it. The best way to fight bugs is to build up a bit of immunity to them. In London we felt that parents were way too hygienic about their kids, many of whom seemed to get sick rather easily. E. coli was discovered by the German pediatrician, Theodor Escherich, in 1881. He was born in Ansbach, not far from Nuremberg. The QSL is from the Bayerischer Rundfunk, broadcasting from Munich and Nuremberg and heard in Cape Town on AM way back in 1971.
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