The “Silly Season” is almost upon us, and while most people use the drifting sounds of Boney M and Mariah Carey as a signal that Christmas is near, Cape Town’s surfers have another cue altogether……the Wavescape Surf & Ocean Festival. Running over a full month this year (6 Nov – 6 Dec 2019), what better way to welcome summer than a jam-packed line up of film screenings, outreach events, ocean talks and more with the crème de la crème of Cape Town’s surf scene.

At Shark Spotters, our highlight of the festival is always the Artboard Auction, an evening of “fundraising, fun and frivolity” where some of South Africa’s best creatives take a blank surfboard and turn it into a stunning collectors item that is sold to raise funds for Ocean charities.

Shark Spotters are honoured to have been one of the beneficiary charities of the Artboard Auction for the past 12 years. Since 2007 we have received over R320,000 from the Artboard Auction project, an amazing contribution that has significantly helped our work to improve beach safety and shark conservation in Cape Town’s waters.

To put that in perspective, the Wavescape Festival donations over the years have funded the equivalent of +/- 8,000 spotting hours – a whole years worth of spotting at one beach, or 220 shark exclusion net deployments. These contributions are literally keeping water users safe in Cape Town on a daily basis! And that is just the contributions to Shark Spotters, the auction proceeds are split amongst a number of ocean safety and conservation organisations including NSRI, Waves for Change, 9 Miles Project, Adaptive Surfing, the Beach Co-Op and more!

We cannot over emphasise how desperately needed these funds are and what a massive help the generosity of the bidders, artists and auction organisers has been to helping Shark Spotters achieve so much over the years. From each and every one of the Shark Spotters team, THANK YOU to you all for your support!

This year looks set to be even better than ever, with stunning boards by Brett Murray, Arno Carstens, Heath Nash, Karabo Poppy, Lionel Smit and more! We look forward to seeing everyone there for another classic evening, sharing jokes, beers and amazing art at the Jack Black Brewery in Diep River on 27 November 2019.

For more details of the boards up for auction and the talented artists who created them check out: https://www.wavescapefestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Wavescape-Catalogue-2019-Final.pdf

For the full festival lineup check out: https://www.wavescapefestival.com/