28.10.13

BERNIE HUIGSLOOT / INDONESIA 2013

Waveski in Bali / Indonesia


This years adventure started about 1 week before arrival at gland. I noticed a big event happening off the coast of south Africa on the swell chart. As i tracked it for the next few days, it seemed to be building and more new swells were forming behind it as it marched across the Indian ocean and up towards Indonesia. The best swells form from at least this far out. By the time we were due to leave, There was plenty of swell covering the whole Indian Ocean and another new swell forming off South Africa. Wow! It was going to be on!!

By the time we arrived, there was due to be solid waves for at least 1 week solid and starting to build during the day. Well, we had our breakfast and set up the boards ready for the days events, but the usual afternoon offshores never materialised. It stayed onshore all day!!, in what would be the biggest day I have ever been here and not went out there (without an injury, anyway.)

Well, it poured down rain all night and flooded the camp the next morning. (not much sleep) and the next day, the sun came out briefly and the surf fully arrived. There were big waves, some good tides, but the main thing you can usually always rely on this time of year,(the offshore mid morning winds) were not here. It was at least a little bit cleaner and some solid waves were to be had for the next 2 days

It was kind of weird and everything seemed to be a little bit "Off". Some good waves to be had on the cleaner moments, but some of the waves were not perfect or clean and you had to be selective, as some of the sections were brutal and some of the waves had teeth on them just wanting to swallow you whole! And that is exactly what happened.Some good waves were had and then on the fourth day (the third of surfing), i went out and on my first wave ( it was a bomb set, and probably the biggest day, I caught a wave maybe I shouldn't have.

All the surfing was being done on Speedies, the heaviest part of the wave, And the Launching Pad was doing its thing in its full fury. Its a hard part of the wave to surf on a ski. The pad can destroy you if you get it wrong. Its easy to get caught inside, and the best surfers have the place pretty wired. Its hard to fit into the lineup in any crowd, luckily it wasn't too crowded.

But I was out the back, waiting my turn when "The" monster set arrived. The second one was standing up and I was right in it's path. A hell paddle to get to it, and without too much time to think, I swung around and paddled to take off.

Oh no!!. While I committed myself to the takeoff, I realised everyone was racing to the shoulder to get over or duckdive it. And people were littered on the wall stopping me from doing a ususal turn to the safety of the shoulder. There were ridges in the wave, it was messy on takeoff, and i found myself skipping down the face of the beast. Some said i was getting 4 foot of air bouncing down the face. I managed to gain control and bottom turned to try and get around it and just remembered the curtain just go straight over my head.i was doomed! The following wipeout caused my go pro camera to snap its mounting, break the string, lose my board and i had to swim about 1 km to get my board back. I lost my paddle to sea, and when I got my board back, it had a big gash in the rail, probably from my paddle. Oh well, at least I'm Ok!

It was one of those things. once i was committed, there is no pulling back, you would just get sucked over the falls anyway.That was the only wave i caught that day. I hate the waves getting the better of me. my board was buggered and needed fixing. All up about $700.00 worth of damage.(paddle and go pro too.) I must say I was a little edgy...As I said, everything was a little off.

There were guys getting good waves and barrels, but lots of carnage in between. I witnessed 2 broken boards on 2 consecutive waves, one other guy broke 3 boards in 3 days. If your going to commit to surfing these waves, then shit is going to happen somewhere along the line. The current was out of control. A massive super moon tide and the large swell meant heaps of paddling. Some "boardies" (stand up riders) couldn't even paddle against the current either inside the white water or out the back. Getting waves was really hard work!

The night after the wipeout, it rained all night again.This time one of the loudest thunderstorms I've ever heard.The following day, the camp was all flooded again.Then 2 more days of solid Speedies waves.This is what most surfers come to gland for.... but these were true south direction swells, which meant my other favourite part of the reef "Moneytrees" wasn't working so well. The conditions even for speedies still wasn't great. So you had to be selective, and i was on edge after "The" wipeout. Some great waves to be had the next 2 days anyway.

Speedies does that. It puts all the crowd into one tight bunch from the "Pad" all the way down the race track that is speedies. The next day, as the tide was getting too low, I decided to go up reef to moneytrees. Speedies was smaller, but just cracking hard barrels on the reef. Not many people were making them, but for the lucky few, the ones that were makeable were real quality. I gave it a miss because there wasn't many and the crowd looked intense, also with the lower than normal tide, I had a bad feeling and it was too dangerous.

The next few days seem a blur. We had a few fun ones at speedies and Kongs, then the great swell seemed to die. Then I took a photo of all the volcano's in the distance and someone said, when they are clear, it will go flat for over a week, which is exactly what happened. Damn! Looking at the photoes, yeah, we got it good, but you get jungle fever when it rains most days and you sit inside watching movies all day.

PHOTOS / CLICK HERE

1 Comments:

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