This year has been great as I have managed to meet a lot of my goals and make a lot of my dreams and hopes for the year come true, through training hard and also through having lots of fun in the water.

This started with an amazing trip to Indo and followed with me winning the Bos Cape Crown, the Billabong Pro Junior Series at Ballito and the Jordy Smith O’Neill Supergrom comp in Durban.

After this, the next stop was Mossel Bay for the Boss of Moss Comp.

Two Days before the Boss of Moss started, my Dad drove me and some friends up to Mossel Bay to get to know the waves and conditions before the competition started. Training with my coach Llewellyn also helped me a lot with this.

I had a very hard first heat (semi finals), but managed to take the win from my other competitors, Zoe Steyn and Caroline Brown, taking me into the finals. Then, in the finals, the conditions were quite big and the weather was grim. But I went out there determined to do my best. I managed to get a second place. Although I would’ve loved to have won, I am still really happy to have come second. Altogether I had a lot of fun at the event and it was amazing to have gained more experience through this competition.

After Mossel Bay, I had my school camp for a week so I couldn’t surf, but as soon as I got back I started practicing again, as I knew that the next upcoming events were important and were the last ones for the year – the last leg of the Billabong Junior Series at Seal Point and the Billabong Junior SA Champs.

I arrived at Seals a week before the competition started and had a lot of fun surfing in really fun, uncrowded surf, before everybody else came up. I trained a lot with Lu before the event, which got me well prepared, but unfortunately I again had a very hard semi final heat, with Zoe Steyn, Caroline Brown and Leila Steytler. I went in focused into my heat and although I got one very high scoring wave, I couldn’t get a good enough back up wave to get the result I was looking for.

But the next day, I was BEYOND HAPPY to find out that I had won the Billabong Junior Series 2017 in the U14 girls division.

Then, three days later came SA Champs and I was surfing for Cape Winelands, which is a very amazing team. I always find SA Champs to be one of the most fun events because I love surfing in a team, as it’s lots of fun and your teammates are there to support you.

I went into SA Champs really well prepared, being supported by my coach (Llewellyn), my family and friends. I had a great first round, quarter-finals and semi finals, winning these heats with high scoring waves and having so much fun at the same time. I went into my final aiming to give of my best and to win, but unfortunately could not find the right back up wave to support my first good score. All credits to Zoe Steyn, who took the title, and to all the other competitors for making it such an awesome event.

I’m so glad I reached my goal of making the finals in SA Champs. I am a little bit disappointed I didn’t get the result I wanted, but I’m proud of the way I surfed at SA’s and glad that I had so much fun.

Thanks again to FTB, Llewellyn and ELS boards for all the support.

Thanks too to Billabong and the other sponsors for supporting South African Surfing.

And lastly, thanks to the OCEAN!