Kromme River bar.

The Bar was a bit bumpy today.

We are only a day away from neap tide so there was very little water over the bar. The South Easters of the last week didn't help either. Luckily, shortly before we left, I bumped into a customer of mine who was going fishing on the other side of the River and arranged that he will check the bar out and phone me.

"Bumpy but do-able", came his report.

So Jamie and I gave it a bash. And a bash it was.

Tanya took the pictures from the sand bank at the river mouth.

The river reaches the sea. The deep water channel then takes a sharp turn left towards Jeffreys Bay. The channel runs parallel to the beach for about 400 meters with a massive sandbank between the channel and the sea. Waves wash over the sandbank, making the channel a bit of a washing machine. Then there is a set of leading marks on the sand dunes on the left. As you approach the leading marks, you can start to see where the water is smoothest, indicating the deep water pass into the bay.

So it is then a right turn to starboard, straight out with breaking waves on the sandbanks to port and starboard. The deep water channel also had breakers today, but at least you are in deep water so as long as you don't bottom out, you're okay.

I asked Jamie to do a video clip of the bit out through the waves. He was doing well until a big wave came and he ducked into the cabin and left me to take the full impact of the wave. His video clip goes from "interesting" to a black mumble jumble as he ends up filming wild scenes of the cabin, his feet, the roof and other blurry images. This happened twice, and then we were through.

The pictures show us firstly in the channel parallel to the beach, the sand bar with the waves on it, then shows us doing the sharp turn to seaward and finally punching through the waves.