Now, with the endless desert rising up to meet us, he isn’t so sure.
“I hope you brought enough boards with you,” says Francois Loubser as we all shake hands. “Because this wave, she really likes to eat boards.”
Loubser is built like his trusty Land Rover. Tough. Solid. Made to last against the elements with an engine that runs on diesel and guts. A hardcore Namibian fisherman and exploration guide, he has agreed to be our fixer, but we don’t even have a single paddle to load onto his hulking vehicle that waits outside the terminal. All our equipment had to be offloaded because the tiny plane from Cape Town was too heavy. After being assured the surf craft would arrive the following day, we pile into Loubser’s truck and the engine roars to life and we chug onto the thin vein of tar connecting the airport to the coast.
Loubser steers the vehicle with a meaty fist, pointing out the window at a towering pyramid of sand known as Dune 9. “Many guys remember this dune when they think of hell,” he says with a wry smile. “This is where they had an army training camp when it was still South West Africa, before Namibia became independent. They used to make the rekkies run up and down that dune, up and down.”
