Back in Bali

If you look at a map, you would think getting from Siargao to Bali would be easy. Not so much. Itinerary:

Sunday
4:30am wake up
5:30am ferry to Surigao island (3 hours)
1pm Fly to Cebu (4 hour layover, 1 hour flight)
8pm Cebu to HK (painless 2.5 hour flight, painful 6 hour layover)
HK (sleep in airport hotel, as I have a 10 hour layover)

Monday
10am depart for Bali, 5 hour flight.

I finally arrived at the surf lodge around 4pm Monday afternoon. The funny thing about the lodge is that isn't not on the beach, like the one I booked. In fact, it's not what I booked. After more logistics, it was arranged that I would transfer the next day to the right place.

I'm now settling into how nice it is to be back in Bali. The people here are, if anything, even nicer than I remembered. So much laughter, so many smiles. The surf hasn't been great, in fact a lot of folks are downright dejected as its about as flat as Bali gets. It means the breaks that are working are crowded, and without good size you've got rank beginners in lineups where normally they'd be getting pounded and swept into shore. I'm not worried as I've got enough time. And there are still waves to be had if you are patient, waves that would make your day back home.

Yesterday, we had a 5am wakeup call in a rainstorm to go to a "secret spot" near Uluwatu. It required climbing down a cliff, through a cave and along a low tide reef for about half a mile. But when we got there, the five of us had it all to ourselves. Throughout the trek were the little prayer baskets and burning incense that are a staple of Bali, which just lent to the atmosphere. I caught a coupla fun waves but it was definitely inconsistent. The rain stopped but it was overcast for most of our session. While it was still plenty warm for me, the Balinese guides with us were frozen, their teeth chattering despite layering up with double rashguards. They kept trying to convince us it was time for breakfast ("Yum, pancakes") but no one was buying it. More waves, please.

Midway through the session one of the guides told me I needed a shorter board, I was too good to be riding the board I was on. That was nice to hear, even though I would prove him wrong (see below about our afternoon session). At one point, he saw me fail to make it around a section of one wave and said, "Kiernan, you need to make speed faster. Make speed faster!" We were all cracking up in the lineup about that one. I later told him that he should spin his arms around while we waited for the sets, that way he could "make warm faster."

In the afternoon, we drove south to the end of the Bukit pennisula to a place that picks up any swell around. The conditions were actually pretty fun, lots of head high and above waves that hollowed up as the session went on. I surfed horribly and always seemed to be in the wrong spot and bungled it the few times I was. I finally paddled in rather than let the surf gods continue to mock me and sat on a gorgeous, virtually empty white sand beach and watched better surfers than I carve it up in the azure water.

Time to get ready for the days session. Heading back to the scene of my lameness yesterday. There is supposed to be a big swell coming in next week, but big here means BIG so we'll see how that all works out.

Something I'm learning about surf trips and surfing in general is you really have to assume nothing. You can get skunked with bad surf even in Indo; you can get effectively shut out by surf that's too big (e.g. the daily beatings Chris and I took in Costa Rica earlier this year). You can paddle out on a day without promise and the winds shift, things line up and it turns into a dream. And while I've had some great sessions in my travels so far, and some of the best waves of my life, nothing beats having a magic day at your home breaks with your local crew.

Wherever you are, whatever your plan, you never really know when the ocean is going to give you those magic sessions, you just have to keep showing up and waiting for it all to come together.