Didn’t think i’d be typing that today. Woke up feeling a bit shonky, convinced i must be suffering from malaria. either that or a few too many bintangs whilst watching the mighty tigers come away with a noble draw at Anfield. Gotta love live internet streaming at http://www.fcfootballblog.com . Early pickup for padang padang surfcamp, i’ll be coming back to that in a future post. After a delicious fruit plate, Andrew the welsh owner informed me that 4 of us were going to head off to Ulawatu. ULAWATU. And I’d been so careful not to oversell my surfing skills, this is what i already new about Ulawatu.
- One of the most beautiful surf spots in the world.
- The only way to access the spot is by descending through a cave.
- Perfect consistent barrels breaking over razor sharp reef.
Whoooah. Point one i could live with, two, okay, i guess not an insurmountable problem. Three, now that was an issue. The place is intimidating, parked up and walked past the row of warungs (restaurants) on the top of the cliff, that overlook the break, that double as a viewing gallery over the break below. From here, i could see it wasn’t barreling, probably breaking max one and a half head high, though it was difficult to access coral sharpnes from this height. Left our gear at a warung and headed down through the cave. Things are different now to how it must have been to the first guys who surfed this place, who clambere down on ropes with their boards. Steep concrete steps now lead you down to sea level, still butterflies were present, of the stomach variety.
Ulawatu is a intrernationally renound left, hence a busy break even on a small day such as this. Surfers line up all along the path of the breaking wave, a floating viewing gallery. The paddle out was fine, the current sweeps you straight to the right outside the line of the break for an easy paddle out. After finding my spot something strange happened, a wave came, not a huge wave, but a wave, i turned paddled, and popped up. Wow surfing the peak at Ulawatu, not surfing it well, or with any degree of style, but surfing Ulawatu. Wouldn’t have predicted that yesterday morning, especially with that nagging malaria.
And so it continued, didn’t catch many, a couple more maybe, and the wave count was more than doubled by extreme wipouts, one particularly spectacular. giving me an insight into coral sharpness (fairly, but not razor sharp). All was left was the exit to dry land, head to the right of the cave and the let the current guide you in. No dramas all, good. Back at the top of the cave you are beckoned in to the first stall, a guy searches frantically through images on his laptop, finding images of you on your waves. Nothing it seems at this break goes unrecorded.
3 responses so far ↓
c’mon… Let’s get this blog rollin’…. Surely you haven’t found anything better to do
Great satellite pic but I don’t believe you were there. Where’s the evidence bearded one?
[...] to the bali surf camp post. What a spot, located about 40 mins from kuta and 5 minutes drive to Uluwatu. In my usual style, presumed there’d be room at the inn without actually booking. I had [...]