Surfing Nusa Dua Bali‘s Sunset Beach

The tourism enclave of Nusa Dua on the south-east corner of Bali simply oozes with five star luxury, and conjures up visions of umbrella-adorned tropical drinks being carried to you by elegant men or exotic women in ceremonial Balinese costumes, while you brown yourself poolside under the blazing sun with no more a care for anything but pure hedonism in the form of food, drink, and then a long, sensuous massage.

However for others, surfers in particular, hedonistic fulfilment takes a different form, and this five star Eden is home to Bali's most eminent big wave surf spot, simply known as "Nusa Dua". The name doesn't make a lot of sense logically, as the words "Nusa Dua " essentially mean "Two Islands", which aren't really islands but two rocky outcroppings that serve as the base for two Balinese temples….the closest maybe a kilometre or more to the north of where the actual Nusa Dua surfing break is located.

Regardless of semantics, Nusa Dua is, in the minds of most of the old time surf crew anyways, the Balinese version of Hawaii's famed Sunset Beach. According to long-time Bali resident Steve Palmer, who remembers surfing Nusa Dua for the first time with Kim "the Fly" Bradley back in 1974, Nusa Dua was like Sunset, Hawaii. "I surfed Sunset Beach at about 5 foot one time, and that was about the heaviest wave I have ever experienced. So when I had Dick Brewer (legendary Hawaiian board maker) shape me a board especially for Nusa Dua, I told him to make it like a Sunset board but pull it back about twenty percent. It worked perfectly," said Steve.

The picture of serenity with long blue peeling lines topped in bright white foam, Nusa Dua at three to four foot looks like mellow perfection to the average surfer, but a word of warning; never count out that sleeper set that will come from out of nowhere to pound you and wash you all the way down to the golf course! And turning it up a notch, the exhilarating elevator drop and race with that intimidating mountain of water that's intent upon catching up to you and giving you the beating of your life on a solid six to eight foot day is what Steve calls an "elemental experience". An experience that will have your head buzzing at 100 plus decibels and drowning out everything but your very basic survival instincts - but therein lies the attraction.

One of Bali's first surfers, Gede Narmada, made the trek from Kuta to Nusa Dua with Mike Boyum in 1973 to have his first "elemental experience." The path to the beach led through some cornfields, which is now the Nusa Dua Golf and Country Club, and there were no boats to take you out to the lineup in those days. Just your arms and a long paddle! The boats started taking surfers out to the lineup in the early 80's, and nobody paddled out from the south by the Nusa Dua Beach Grille and the temple until several years after that. The early Nusa Dua crew consisted of Narmada, Boyum, Bobby Radiasa of G-Land fame and several others, but nobody had the place wired like Kim Bradley according to Narmada. "Kim studied the place and knew where to line up in all the various conditions. He showed me the big tree and where to be in relation to it. That tree is still there and I still use it today as my reference," he said.

Knowing the line up doesn't mean you won't have a hairy experience or two. Narmada said his worst experience was when he lost his board on a sizeable day back in ‘83-‘84. It was big, high tide, and very strong current. "I was swimming and swimming and thought I would end up in Lombok! Then I met another guy who had lost his board and we started swimming together, heading out of the channel to the north. Finally, after about an hour we crawled up onto the beach. I'm telling you, if it's big you better bring a friend along…don't surf there alone!"

All things considered it's the danger factor that is the big draw after all, isn't it? If you want to cover your bases and balance adrenaline with preservation of life, don't go much shorter than a 6'6", and preferably a 6'10" to 7'2" with a bit of thickness to get in early and avoid those nasty elevator drops. Perfect conditions? In Narmada's opinion, Nusa Dua needs a solid 6-10 foot west swell and a medium tide (1.6-2.0) coming up to produce those big picture-perfect thigh-muscle-burning walls that peel down the reef for 200 metres or so. And if you don't want to fight the speedway current that allows you tantalizingly close but never lets you get to the peak, check the moon and make sure its neither full moon nor new moon but somewhere close to the middle.

Oh, one last thing…you should probably save your strength for paddling and pay the IDR 30,000 for the one-way boat trip out to the lineup. You'll need every bit of help you can get… But it'll be worth every stroke.