The South African Wakeboard champs arrived in Cape Town this year for the very first time, and obviously we were there to witness it and hang out with South Africa’s top riders which was quite a novel idea. I stated that if I went to this event, I wanted to roll first class, and this was all catered for. I wanted access to the top riders, the boats…everything. So that’s what happened, we kicked it old school.
We had organised to go through with Andrew Bourne, the 2007 Western Province wakeboard champion. Andy is suffering with a knee injury though and is still going to be out of riding for a couple of months, so we had the privilege of chilling with him and watching the event. Andy had also introduced us to Gina and Shaun Faccio, the dynamite brother sister pair who we will be talking about later.
The first day was a bit of a slow start for the SLXS crew as we had partied until 4:30am on Saturday morning. The reason we partied so late was that…well we did not really have anything else to do at that time of the day. What do people do at that time? We work in the day (2 hours) and then party at night. We don’t ever stop. This is normal for us and we usually recover in due time for a fresh start to a week. However we had to be up only three hours later at 7:30am in order to get to Rietvlei to watch the riders. So we drove through in the Bourne2Ride chariot, with myself sitting silent the whole drive there, unable to comprehend the utter feeling of despair and pain permeating through my body. It felt like there was a little man in my head, kicking my eyeballs from the back. After all we had partied with The Pimp Herd the night before, and these nights never end easily.
Upon arrival it was obviously necessary to get a boat in the water.Everyone else was sitting on dry land, but it was necessary for us to not be “everyone else” The X-Star got it’s boots in the water and we all jumped in, and took the cruise to the other side of the vlei to see what was going on. We pumped the music out of a sound system on the X-Star that could shatter the windows in my house. Being a sporting event everyone was in awesome shape and quite healthy. Seeing as though we are in awesome shape and healthy, we decided that we could safely put back a beer at 11am. We were in for a long day and definitely needed the carbs, as athletes do. Here we show you what two real athletes look like:
It’s this type of laid back lifestyle that keeps us all so youthful and allows us to keep on living the lifestyle. While most companies go through employees like they do sugar and coffee, we just keep rolling at a nice even pace(Read: Lightspeed) If it’s an excess lifestyle that you are after, but one that at the same time is relaxed and filled with the best things in Cape Town, then SLXS is the place to be. It gets crazy at times with minimal work being done and maximal partying being done.
While we chilled on the boat Andy made use of his USN sponsorship and took along a case of USN Energy Spike. But not in the small cans, he went for a case of the man sized 440ml cans. Enough caffeine to kill a horse, floor a family and power a jet, it was the fuel of the weekend. The new cans are perfectly suited to us, because the smaller cans were just never enough for our powerful bodies that were actually designed, engineered and built upon the blueprint of the the behemoths in the movie 300.
One of the testers comments on the new 440ml USN Spike was “I’m actually battling to blink right now” Which summed up the Spike experience. I thought I was in America when I saw Cape Towns sickest mullet, obviously paying homage to Billy Ray Cyrus. It was a beautiful piece of work. A classic case of the “Office party” Short on the back and sides for work, and long and flowing at the back for the party! I’m guessing he uses Redken- The womens range- to keep those locks in order. True artistry like this deserves to be mentioned to the world.
I AM THE YETI!
Rietvlei is also home to some natural phenomena that no one can explain. Al Gore and Stephen Hawking would even be humbled by the true power of the earth and it’s ecosystems. We sometimes think that the earth is not capable of thought, but it is. Like in the sand, it thought it would be funny to position sand particles in such a way as to resemble a part of the male anatomy. Obviously just having a bit of class clown session with us.
Naughty sand
It was hilarious, the earth was recognising what we had drawn on the chalk boards at school! It know that we found it funny and thought that it would humour us a bit. Thanks Rietvlei, you are a laugh! A giant penis. Awesome.
We arrived with Gina and Shaun Faccio, who are from Joburg and were down here to compete. They were staying with Andy and we were rolling with them and what I did not realise is how awesome they were. If I were a top athlete I would stand on the ABSA building in town and let everyone know that I’m a top athlete. I would shun sponsorship deals and instead just plaster my name all over my clothing and all over my car. There is something cool about being an athlete that would make me feel powerful. Gina and Shaun however are different. I spent the whole of Saturday with them and I didn’t even realise that they were seriously talented athletes.
We spoke about everything except their actual careers, which was kind of cool. We spoke parties, parties, parties…then we spoke about Joburg and Cape Town. We spoke about Coke Light and eye drops(Thanks Peter) We spoke about the actual event and we spoke about how cool it was to just be in Cape Town, in the sun, while some other people were probably in a tube in London thinking “I hate my life” We couldn’t complain because we were loving life!
The first day was kind of slow as we were bent from beating the night clubs on the head with a stick the night before. While the athletes went to bed early, we also went to bed early. I count 4:30am as early. Rolling with South Africas top wakeboarders is kind of like having a crack sandwich in the morning- once it starts your day off, you never want it to end! It’s a bit of a thrill ride as they live a lifestyle that office workers can only dream of- That of seeing sun all the time!
Plus the benefits of being an extreme athlete mean that you will never struggle to hook up with the opposite sex.
In my case girls ask “So what do you do?”
“Well actually honey muffin, I’m a writer”
This is usually enough to warrant them to take the double vodka and Red Bull I have just bought them, and walk off. My new vibe is this: You’re single, that’s why you’re speaking to me with your tabs hanging out. As a single person, you are normally buying your own drinks anyway, so if you want to speak to me, then you can buy your own drinks as well. Do I really have to spend R50 to talk to you? Look at yourself, you’re a seven…If I’m talking to an 11 I might consider spending the R50. But even then I probably won’t. It’s not being rude or arrogant, it’s just that, why do girls never pay for guys drinks? Exactly.
So…as the day rolled on and the sun disappeared on another Cape Town day, I was not sure what was going on. The first day of the SA Wakeboard champs had gone by in a blur, but that’s why we had day two….
Sean Lloyd
Editor
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