Jeffreys Bay

Jeffreys Bay is on South Africa's Eastern Cape coast, an hour west of Gqeberha. The town sits behind a series of right-hand point breaks that run for several hundred metres, and the best of them, Supertubes, is on most lists of the finest waves in the world.

The wave is a product of geometry. A long sandstone point deflects south-westerly swell across a shallow reef at exactly the angle that holds a barrel open, and when a winter groundswell arrives the ride runs from Boneyards through Supertubes to Impossibles — over a kilometre in a single wave on the rare days it links up. The World Surf League has held a championship event here since 1996, and the town's economy is built on it.

The water is cold. This is the eastern edge of the Agulhas system but the Cape swell brings colder water with it, and a wetsuit is standard year-round. There are sharks; a competitor was attacked during the 2015 event, on live television, and the incident changed how the tour manages water safety. Bathers use the sheltered beaches at Dolphin and Kitchen Windows rather than the point. The point is sandstone rather than reef, which is why the sandbanks that shape the wave shift at all.

Development is a low coastal town with surf shops, shellfish middens in the dunes and a substantial informal settlement inland — the contrast is sharp and is not hidden. Sand mining and coastal development have altered the sandbanks feeding the point, which surfers here watch closely. Cape St Francis, twenty minutes west, is the wave from the original Endless Summer footage, and Seal Point beyond it has the lighthouse and the fur seals.

Supertubes is the reason the town exists in its present form, and on a winter groundswell it is one of the finest waves on earth. Beginners belong at Dolphin Beach and swimmers belong in a wetsuit. The 2015 attack, on live television, is part of what this place is and the town does not pretend otherwise.