THINGS are heating up for the annual Just Juice Umhlanga Summer Festival, which will be taking place at Umhlanga’s main beach from 12 to 23 December. The festival will see the top South African surfers take to the water in the Lizzard Hurricane Summer Surf event, which offers over R50 000 in prize money and products. Local surf club, Wave Wizards, will be hosting the contest and will have top A grade judges in place.

Local resident, Casey Grant (25), took the victory in 2014 and is hard at work getting ready to claim the trophy again this year. Casey has been crowned SA champ many times and has been the runner-up in the Ballito Pro.

“The Lizzard Hurricane is one of my favourite contests on the calendar. It is always chilled and you can feel the fun summer vibes on the beach with all the holiday-makers around. uMhlanga is also such a cool place to have the event,” he said.

Surfers of all ages and abilities are welcome to enter. There will be short boarding and long boarding divisions. Novice surfers of all ages are also welcome.

Competition will be fierce again this year with a prize purse of R10 000 from Lizzard for the open men’s winners and R5 000 from Hurricane for the open ladies’ winners. Competitors will all get T-shirts and fantastic products from numerous companies.

There will also be R10 000 up for grabs for the surf club that wins the tag team event, plus another R1 000 from top South African surf magazine, Zigzag, for the surfer who performs the best over the weekend.

Entries are now open. For more details, contact Wave Wizards Club chairman, Jestyn Viljoen, on 079 500 3945 or e-mail Julie de Vries on juliedev@mweb.co.za for an entry form.