The Power We Get From The Sea

Second beach in port St. Johns was once an African surfing paradise. Consistent waves. Warm, sub-tropical waters. Lush foliage and wild banana palms. Lazy Nguni cattle, feral dogs, and a row of houses along the river, just behind the beach. A right-hand point that sometimes broke as an A-frame when the swell direction cooperated. A big, grinding left on the far side of the small bay that mesmerized the eyes, though no one really surfed it. Maybe it was the sharks. Maybe it was the rocks. Maybe it was because the right and the A-frame were more than enough.

This is where Avuyile Ndamase grew up, in one of those houses on the river, with mama and his brother, Zama. Pops had long since split to Umtata, where he worked for the municipality. It wasn’t poverty, but they were poor. 

“I hear the ocean day and night, like a heartbeat.”

In the mid 2000s, Mike Gatcke, a Transkei tour guide who made his crust doing airport runs between Umtata, East London, and Port St. Johns—and who lived at the end of their road—established the Iliza Surf Academy. Avuyile and Zama quickly fell in with the crew and showed immediate promise. Suddenly, they had a shot at becoming the African equivalent of the Florence sprogs or the Irons brothers. Surfing gave them a glimpse of a future. Second Beach was their own private Ehukai Beach Park, and they lapped it up. 

When I first met Avuyile “Avo” Ndamase, it was April 2008. He was a gangly 14 year old, alive with the joys of surfing. His younger brother Zama was no different. I was working with a team of filmmakers and journalists to make a documentary about the shifting demographic of South African surfing, called Moving On. The Second Beach surf scene became the center-point of the film, the Ndamase brothers our stars.

Surfing gave them a glimpse of a future. Second Beach was their own private Ehukai Beach Park, and they lapped it up.

In late 2008, Avo was selected for the Border Surf Team to compete in the South African National Championships. Around the same time, he got a call from the Ajax Football Academy in Cape Town with a scholarship offer. Soccer in South Africa is a job—a potential career, big-boy money. Surfing…not so much. Unless you’re Jordy Smith, you’re lucky if you get a tracksuit and a sandwich. But Avo was hooked. There was no hesitation. His decision had been made firmly, long ago, by the feeling of acceleration and the release of a piece of fiberglass as it planes between dimensions along a breaking wave. 

“Since then,” he says, “it has just been a vicious chase, you know, finding myself a place in surfing.” 

He was making progress. Then the shark attacks started. Port St. Johns has always had a reputation, but no one ever really looked too deeply. Maybe because the Kei municipality and the Apartheid government didn’t give a shit, and the ANC government couldn’t get around to giving a shit either. One way or another, just as the Iliza Surf Academy was taking off, a lifeguard was hit. Then a swimmer. Then a German tourist. Then another lifeguard. Then Luyolo Mangele, one of the Iliza kids. All attacks fatal. All Zambezi [bull] sharks.

Enthusiasm waned. Gatcke tried to get Shark Shields for the kids so they could still surf, but the electronic technology was cumbersome to wear and the kids wanted to rip. Undeterred they surfed, but more selectively, only risking it when it was cooking. And then another strike changed everything. 

Zama was fast becoming one of South Africa’s best surf prospects, threatening to eclipse his older brother—fueling a healthy competition and rivalry between the siblings. The Zambezi shark that hit him came from nowhere. The bite tore open his leg, severing the femoral artery. He died on the beach. It was tragedy for one of South Africa’s first indigenous surfing communities.

“When he got off the board,” says Avo in a deadpan, “after the big bite on the back of his leg, he was about 10 meters [30 feet] away from me. I’m obviously going to relive that moment for the rest of my life—seeing the whole thing happen.”

When Zama died, so did the Iliza Surf Academy and surfing in Port St. Johns. It was a turning point for Avo. He wasn’t ready to quit. On a wave, your mind travels.

He doubled his commitment to making a name for himself. He negotiated with his mother to move to the nearby town of East London, accompanied by his friend, Zithobile Msesiwe, to finish school in a place where they could surf. Eastern Beach became his second home. He got better. Won the Quiksilver Future Stars competition. Scraped through high school. Started working at a backpacker hostel on the beach called the Sugar Shack. He taught tourists to surf and poured their drinks at night behind the bar—always searching for the next move to pull closer to the dream. 

“I’m not scared,” he says. “I don’t have fear. People don’t believe that, but I don’t have fear. The only reason I got through [my brother’s death] was because of surfing. I just needed to surf and to let go of that vibe.”

In 2013, he moved to Durban, surf city of South Africa. This was no golden age for the industry, however. A big sponsorship was (and continues to be) rare, even for the most gifted talents. Avo ended up working in a surf shop. Grinding retail. Short, frustrating early morning sessions. Longer, sloppy afternoon sessions in the onshore winds, before the sunset, paddling in next to the lights along the pier. 

“I like to see myself as an ambassador of change for all those Pondo kids growing up in the Transkei, not being able to see further than the sticks and dung.”

Always good with his hands, he did a stint as an apprentice carpenter, building cupboards in Umhlanga. He lived in the Surfers Not Street Children Surfhouse as an unofficial mentor, serving as a coach and kindred spirit. While there, he watched surfing empower kids like him, helping them through the trials of homelessness, addiction, and poverty. He moved on, bounced around, picked up a small sponsorship from a start-up African surf brand called Mami Wata. 

He went back to the surf shop to make ends meet. Won the Kushay’ iGagasa surf contest in 2016, then the KwaZulu-Natal trials in 2017. He scored a photogenic surf mission back to the Kei alongside Ricky Basnett and Emma Smith for Zigzag magazine. Then at the South Africa Championships, he blazed a trail to a quarterfinal finish, only to be knocked out by eventual winner, and S.A. Champ, Brandon Benjamin. 

Avo knows he probably won’t make it onto the World Qualifying Series. Still, he holds out hope that he might make the South African team for the Olympics in Japan in 2020. It’s a maybe/maybe-not proposition. 

“Ah, whatever man,” he says and smiles. “Hopefully my performance grows. I’ll get better at what I do each day. I know that. I believe in myself. I’m just trying to figure out where I belong. Surfing for me, right now, is my world. It’s where I’m going to find myself, whether it’s in shaping, or opening my own shop, or running a surf school or a surf camp. Whatever I do, it will be surfing. I’m at a good, young age to figure out where I need to be. To figure out who I am in the surfing world, to decide what I can give back and what I can take from it. Surfing is where I belong. It’s my place.

“Whatever I do,” he continues, “however far I get, I want to be an inspiration and an influence for other African kids. I want to keep the Ndamase legacy burning. I like to see myself as an ambassador of change for all those Pondo kids growing up in the Transkei, not being able to see further than the sticks and dung. I am that person. I want to be an inspiration to the people that inspire me. I want to tell my story and be pure to who I am. I’m an African surfer. I grew up in a changing South Africa. The future looks good, man. I’m part of a big, global community of wave riders and I’m proud of it. And I want to be a pioneer of that community in Africa.”

As the nyangas say, the power we get from the sea will change you in strange ways.

[Feature image: Photo by Greg Ewing.]