Selasa, 02 Desember 2008

Surf out in Bali


November should by rights be a pretty flat affair in the waves department and whilst the month has had it's fair share of flat spells its also seen a handful of epic days lighting up the points from

Geger in Nusa Dua to Tandjungs in Sanur and off into the mystic, mountainous East coast of Bali.


It's been an unpredictable month with the winds blowing strong onshore on the West coast one day then switching round to be blasting offshore the very next. I sat watching a perfect Uluwatu last Wednesday afternoon with twelve surfers out on the Racetrack section that was delivering simply the most flawless head high barrels from take off to practically round the headland, sniffing in the direction of Padang Padang. It's enough to make us naturals wish we were goofy footers, especially when there's only a smattering of folk in the line up and what was clearly a trip making session for those out in the water.

Flying out to Trawangan on a dive trip I saw a few waves breaking on the East coast as we pulled up in the twin prop, a couple of outer reefs were showing some great form on a moderate swell with what looked like one solo rider out in the middle of practically nowhere. I made a mental note of the rough location and will be hopping on a boat out there just as soon as conditions spell success. No doubt Serangan has been delivering some action over the last few weeks but it's just too crowded to properly consider as an option with its proximity to Kuta drawing in the crowds way before daybreak. It's now a matter of patience whilst we wait for a long overdue summer swell to hit and I can sneak off up the coast, quietly, to see if that magical point I stumbled across last month is serving up some Indo pearls.

A couple of days back at the end of October played host to a ghost swell winging its way up from the West of Lombok and offloading onto our Eastern shoreline, a swell that barely registered on the Southwest of Bali but provided point perfect conditions for the other side of the island.

I lucked out and surfed Keramas with four mellow locals out on the Thursday but it descended into circus time on the Friday after, with a caravan pack of Japanese slugging it out with a cluster of Brazilians who seemed to have temporarily mislaid their table manners, that is until some of the local crew paddled out to put things in order.


Surfing anywhere with the sort of behaviour on display that Friday would be enough to put you off for life so it was reaffirming to get in the water the week after with a bunch of first timers and to share their enthusiasm for learning the art of riding waves.

Most surfers I know are self-taught, it seems to be pretty much the only way to go when you start out. If you're lucky you might have a few friends to pass down some info on what to do, how, when and what to do to avoid running into any trouble in the water. I learned the hard way and had to really want to learn and improve, often surfing by myself or with better surfers where sessions would come and go and I would be lucky to score a single wave. That went on for two years until I finally started holding my own in the line-up and legitimately claiming set waves of my own. Then you move on up the ladder to the next spot where another steep learning curve awaits you, not to mention a new crowd of locals that will (more often than not) be less than happy to make acquaintances.
Paddling around with a group of beginners down on Padma beach late one Wednesday afternoon I saw the reason I started out. Put simply, a few kids with the biggest smiles on their faces charging around on soft boards getting onto their knees, stacking it, pulling themselves out to the back of the breaking waves and throwing everything they had into having as much fun as humanly possible. It was all the Quiksilver instructors could do to keep up with the kids drive to pull off a ride to the beach and when a few aspiring pros did manage it the rest of the group went loopy.

That afternoon was one of the best surfs I'd had in a while and I hadn't even scored a single wave. It was good to get away from all the seriousness of combating your fellow surfers for waves and back into the right vibe for wanting to be out there on your board in the first place, after all, as Kelly Slater once remarked, "the best surfer in the water is the one having the most fun." And he should know.

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