Dirk du Toit is an ex-Marine, diver, lifesaver and competitive surfer from Blouberg who works in the oil industry in Port Gentil.

He has a large mini-mal, which he’s not afraid of throwing around at Cap Lopez, and three spare rooms in his large house – which he’s happy to host feral South African overlanders in.

We arrived here on Friday night and headed straight for Le Tube – the local bar:

Since then we’ve spent most of our time missioning around looking for surf. There are two main spots in Port Gentil:

1. Palle Planche needs lot of swell, but runs along a perfect bank. You just have to watch out for the rusty debris on the shoreline.

2: According to the locals Cap Lopez – a kilometre around the point from Palle Planche – used to be a lot longer and more perfect but, nevertheless, we’ve had some excellent waves there each day we’ve been here:

In exchange for the hospitality, Lurks has been helping Dirk out with his accounts:

We’ve just found out that we can’t get onto the flight we were meaning to catch to Libreville today so, unless we manage to get on a plane tomorrow, it looks like the ferry for us on Wednesday. Which means we may be able to squeeze in another session at Cap Lopez. Lets hope it looks like this again!