To start – good news, we’ve uploaded some new photo’s to the web from our last couple of surf-filled weeks in Dakar. If you’re not part of the Facebook group you can access the public gallery HERE.

Anyway, as surfers, one of the things we’ve noticed as we’ve rounded the bulge is that all of a sudden sea urchins on the rocks have become an additional hazard to the trip. We’re not sure why but Dakar specifically is sea-urchin heaven… must be something in the water… which could be any number of things in Dakar! Needless to say standing on one is painful, annoying and can actually lead to fairly serious infection.

Lurks’ urchin-spine infested toe – those little black dots are WAAAY more painful than they look!

We’ve had our fair share of run-ins with them lately which prompted us to investigate an appropriate treatment. We had various pieces of advice from “excavate them with a needle and tweezers” to “use butter as a drawing agent to loosen the spines before squeezing them out” to “leave them, they come out on their own”. Unfortunately none of the above seemed to work really really well which is why we were stoked to get the following comment from Tim’s mum, Mel, on this photo of Lurks:

“Lurks on the urchin-spine removal chair”

Mel commented:

“Boys! this is mel/mom. I’m rather concerned to see you’re trying to remove urchin spines! Don’t. Rather soak the foot in water which is as hot as you can bear. The spines will dissolve, whereas trying to dig it out won’t work, as they are barbed and it will be eina! Very very hot water immersion is the way to go”

(AS note – “eina” means ‘sore/painful’ for none-South Africans!)

Thanks a lot Mel, we’re going to follow Moms’ advice on this one for sure, and this comment earns you the “AfricanSurfer guru of the week” status!

NB – remove urchin spines a.s.a.p. so that you’re ready to go when waves like THIS arrive on your doorstep… (unidentified photographed from the Maison du Mouton)