Vigilante group White Shorts are known for violence towards visiting surfers

decided they didn’t like what I was saying.” Next thing, Kahn was being held down and repeatedly punched in the face. He didn’t retaliate. Luckily, his son captured Bruno paddling towards the kids, and a tourist got photos of his dad, who released a video calmly stating how he was taking the incident further.

As Kahn says, it’s not just about localism. “They feel that their island is under threat. I agree, it is absolutely under threat. Over-development and globalisation are encroaching on their way of life. They’ve had the island to themselves for so long, and now they’re losing it.”

But he drew the line at hurting children.

“It needs to be dealt with. It has steadily been getting worse. If Mauritius Tourism asks visitors to come surf beautiful Tamarin Bay, then there’s obviously some internal conflicts of interest that need to be addressed.”

Kahn was clear that he was not against policing the line-up when people put others in danger, but this was out of hand.

He won’t let it rest, and wants it to serve as a tipping point. The problem was that many people leave the island and don’t follow up.

“But I live here now, and I have a lot of support from here. All kinds of support. Often it’s just people whose kids want to learn to surf or bodyboard in the shorebreak. They don’t even allow that!” he says.

He released the video on Youtube to add impetus to the legal process on Mauritius, and it has certainly done that, with huge interaction. “We are escalating this to the tourism authorities, and are trying to get them to take action. They’ve ignored it for so long. If its out there in the open, it is a lot more difficult to sweep under the carpet.”

Good luck guys. This must be stopped.

We get a taste of summer today, not in temperatures exactly, but with cranking 6-8’ surf on open coast vigorously brushed back by crisp clean SE offshores, with Muizenberg rapidly dissolving into a messy onshore as the southeaster picks up all day, strong in the afternoon. Tomorrow, the surf holds at 4-6’ or more in lighter but still SE winds. Beachbreaks fire. Muizenberg is still messy and onshore and the fantastic run of surf there is put on hold by the weather.

WSL/CESTARI MAKING AN IMPRESSION: South Africa’s Bianca Buitendag looked good going into the semifinals of the Corona Open JBay in pumping surf, but she was defeated by Lakey Peterson of the USA.