Catching some tube tunes

A quirky Eastern Cape surfer who relocated to Bali on a music scholarship, is making waves playing a guitar and surfing – at the same time.

For five years, East London free spirit Ryan “Bugs” Heathcote has been playing a custom-made traditional Indonesian guitar and singing songs while casually threading his way through the curl of a wave.

Footage of his antics surfing over shallow coral reefs with his specially adapted Indonesian Yudelele have been making waves on YouTube and other social media.

Although some people think he is nuts, the

35-year-old said his dream was to record an almost three-minute long song inside the tube of a single wave.

Inspired by the sounds he gets in the water on short rides, Heathcote said all he needed was to find the perfect wave to fully capture what he wanted to achieve.

“I have heard aspects of surf films where the guitar and the wave starts to sound super hypnotic and I am still chasing a long enough clip with that as I believe it has some strange and eerily beautiful qualities.”

After years of searching and practising, Heathcote has set his sights on a frightening wave in Namibia called Skeleton Bay – it is recognised worldwide as one of the longest and most challenging waves around.

Breaking close to shore and draining along for three minutes or more, just catching a wave is hard work as surfers battle raging currents and hard-crunching tubular swells.

Another critical aspect is choice of wave – with some shutting down and breaking boards and bones, while others run forever.

Veteran Skeleton Bay surfer Etienne Potgieter, who has been there more than 20 times in the last six years, yesterday said he was not sure Heathcote’s guitar would even survive the first wipeout.

“It is a very crazy idea, it is very ambitious and although he is a good surfer, I am not sure he will even be able to catch a wave. The drop-in is just so heavy.”

Potgieter said some people battled to carry just a GoPro camera – let alone a guitar.

Besides his guitar, the former Stirling High School pupil said he also had to switch on his GoPro and throw it over his back to record the sound and action before even trying to catch the wave.

Called Bugs from a young age because of his “big buck teeth”, Heathcote said he got the idea as a boy when he spotted a vinyl LP cover of a man surfing and playing guitar.

Besides studying traditional Indonesian Gamelan music, he has earned extra money giving surf lessons to tourists and taking photos of them surfing.

Using a specially waterproofed guitar, Heathcote said the sound of the wave changes the acoustics and gives it a magical effect.

Still hunting the perfect wave to get the sounds he want, Heathcote thinks Skeleton Bay may just be the place.

“To get to what it looks like in my head, could take a couple of sessions – well that’s what I thought five years ago when I started,” he laughed.