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found . “ I thought , ‘ This is incredible .’ There ’ s like 20 breaks of surf and it ’ s really consistent ,” he recalls .
“… Obviously other people had been there , but surfing wasn ’ t a sport in South Africa then . Maybe somebody kind of surfed there , but nobody knew about it . I don ’ t say that I was the first one there , but I was the first one to kind of bring it to the public ’ s attention .”
But first , Metz had a few destinations to check off his list , hitchhiking to Durban and up to the Belgian Congo , Uganda and Sudan , then to Egypt to see the pyramids and sailing on a ship across the Mediterranean to Greece . From there , he traveled all around Turkey , Romania , Hungary and Yugoslavia as well as Pamplona , Spain , for the running of the bulls and attended the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome . He also went to Germany , bought a new Volkswagen bug at the automobile company ’ s factory and had it shipped to New York . Then , he hopped on a ship from the Netherlands to New York , where he picked up the car and drove it back to Laguna .
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Once home , he started sharing all these adventures with his friends , presented lectures and slideshows at schools and local service club meetings , and connected Brown with Whitmore for the “ The Endless Summer ” film , which included many of the locales Metz went to on his global expedition . “ He followed my trip , but he did it on an airplane . It took me three years . He did it in six weeks ,” Metz says .
Now , Jeffreys Bay ( nicknamed J-Bay ) is the site of a World Surf League competition each year . “ The movie told people about it , so then people started surfing in South Africa ,” Metz says . “… It ’ s the best surfing spot in the world .”
Metz also sent supplies to Whitmore so he could start a surfboard business . He packed up a drum of resin , fiberglass and foam blanks and shipped it to Cape Town , then flew back and showed Whitmore how to make the boards . Whitmore quit his job as a car salesman and made a good living with this new business . “ He started making surfboards and the whole sport
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exploded in South Africa ,” Metz says .
They remained friends for life , traveling with their families to visit each other several times until Whitmore developed cancer and died in 2001 . But their chance meeting changed the surfing world . And that ’ s the subject of a recent documentary , “ Birth of The Endless Summer : Discovery of Cape St . Francis ” from Curtis Birch and Emmy-nominated director Richard Yelland of Laguna Beach in association with Oscarnominated Bruce Brown Films . The movie follows Metz back to South Africa as he retraces the steps of his original journey and that serendipitous moment with Whitmore .
“ It ’ s amazing how life works out ,” Metz says . “… I just happened to come along and meet him . So this is what the movie ’ s about . The fact that I didn ’ t get out at Victoria Falls [ and ] that when I got to Cape Town , I could have … never seen John Whitmore . The fact that , when I met him at the beach , it changed his life . It changed my life .” /
To be continued …
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THIS PAGE : COURTESY OF SURFING HERITAGE AND CULTURE CENTER / DICK METZ COLLECTION / SHACC . ORG |
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