Bianca Buitendag has had to find creative ways to surf legally amid beach closures to keep training for the Tokyo Olympics.
The George-based wave artiste has even gone out on a fishing boat, with the necessary permit, to access the breakers around the Garden Route.
"We are very used to travelling so a two-to-three-hour road trip is not much," she said, adding that when they closed Victoria Bay, her regular spot, she headed to Still Bay, about 130km to the west.
"It's not ideal for training," said Buitendag, who ended third at the World Surfing Games in 2019 to book her spot for the showpiece in Japan. The Olympic Games in Tokyo will begin on July 24. The following day surfing makes its Olympic debut.
"You can ask any surfer, we can only manage a few days out of salt water and we get jittery. We have to make a plan."
Buitendag is considered a medal hope, although men's star Jordy Smith, ranked fifth in the world, is SA's surfing pin-up.
Just 20 men and 20 women will compete at the Olympics, but SA's chances of adding a second competitor in both fields has taken a knock with lockdown restrictions forcing the cancellation of a training camp scheduled for early next month.
National surfing coach Greg Emslie said the plan was to select four surfers - two men and two women - to join Buitendag and Smith at the World Surfing Games in El Salvador from May 29 to June 6 where competitors will battle for further Olympic spots.
The top four men and leading six women will join the Tokyo roster, though nations can field a maximum of two men and two women at the Games. Winning one or two extra spots in El Salvador would significantly boost SA surfing's medal aspirations.
But about half of SA's hopefuls vying to make the team for El Salvador were still in SA, struggling to surf. Smith is in Hawaii.
"I understand the need for the measures to combat the spread of Covid-19, but we need to get our elite surfers into the water and surfing is a sport where social-distancing happens naturally," said Emslie.
"Some recreational surfers will take a chance breaking the law, but the professionals cannot afford to do that," he added.
"If they get caught they get criminal records and that can make it difficult to travel in terms of getting visas."
Age-group surfers were also being hit. If a second year were to be lost, some youngsters would find themselves being catapulted four years competitively. That's because surfing's age groups are spaced over two years, from under-10 to under-12 and so on.
"This is also impacting our development programme, a feeder system for the juniors," said Surfing SA president Johnny Bakker. "We want to get athletes back in the water . the rest of the world is practising."
With the Olympics just more than six months out, surfing is not the only local Games sport in a bind.
The SA rowing squad, also potential medallists in Tokyo, are still unable to get onto Roodeplaat dam, where the rampant water hyacinth that was sprayed on December 16 has yet to be manually removed.
The rowers had trained at the Vaal for a few months last year, but the recent rains meant the river was not an option now.
Canoeing SA, still to qualify competitors for Tokyo, have been issuing letters of permission to their members, both river and ocean paddlers.
"These seem to work in the majority of local municipalities," said a federation official. "Some don't accept them."
SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) president Barry Hendricks said he was confident there was a solution for surfing in the pipeline.
He had raised the matter with the sports ministry and was now looking for a list of approved surfers from Surfing SA. "This is for surfers who need to be training . it's not for recreational surfers."
Once Sascoc had the list they would liaise with police station commanders to smooth their return to the waters, he said.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.