In case you do not know Uluwatu is Bali’s premier dry season wave arena. It is on the South West tip of the island and picks up a fairly large amount of swell and has lots of different waves to surf within the area known as Uluwatu. The Bukit (meaning Hill in Indonesian) is the South west tip of the Island and has many surf breaks running all along its coast line. They start at the tip with Uluwatu this has various waves to surf starting with, Temples, Main Peak, The Bombie, Outer Corner and Racetracks. At all tides the wave is powerful and heavy, at low tide it is powerful, heavy, hollow, shallow and very dangerous with strong sea currents, fast sections and lots of different faces to ride depending on swell conditions and wind directions, etc etc..
Basically it is very famous now since it was discovered mid 70′s and has many established warungs/restaurants located on the hill offering spectacular views overlooking all the surfing action. It attracts the best surfers in the world at this time of year and most of them are barrel hungry surf monsters from every rounded corner of the globe. When they are placed in a big group together they start to behave with levels of lunacy and human behavior with more emphasis on risk taking than risk assessment.
To be honest due to my limited surfing experience I havent felt at home within this crowd especially combined with the power and force that Uluwatu breaks onto sharp shallow reef. That was until this week. I knew there was some swell due in fact a supposedly large one and I decided to go down, put my balls on the line, paddle out and try and catch some large heavy waves amongst the 80 or so surfers in the water. It seems the swell was late on the forecast and the waves were no more than about 4 ft and the crowds pretty competitive. However the swell arrived in the space of an hour and the waves and currents started getting really heavy and half the crowd exited the sea. I stayed in the sea and scored 5 super fast long waves in the the section known as Racetracks which is a super quick steep take off into a full speed race down the line..
Jason Lunn Uluwatu Main Peak
I was having a great day and had some great waves and my confidence has increased dramatically in the water as a result. Surfing in a crowd really is a confidence and mind game situation as it involves many different strategies to enable correct positioning in the sea to be in the right place to take off on a wave within a group of equally wave hungry surfers..
Well this was a good morning and I have noticed a real improvement in my surfing since I last surfed here, then the tide got too low for me to surf safely and so after some coffee and cakes went and surfed Dreamlands. This is a newly developed Golf course / holiday resort which is about 1km along the Bukit Penninsula past Padang Padang, Binging and Impossibles ( Some more surf breaks more info soon). I surfed here until sunset. There were 40 or so surfers in the water, many from Uluwatu earlier in the day, Waves really started coming in heavy hollow and hard with a left and a right face off the main Apex. I scored many good waves here as well in fact as many as I could catch , paddle back catch my breath then go again, It was steep and I had many late take offs and fast walls. Today was the best day I have had surfing in Bali since I have been here and my arms are super tired as a result..
Woke up with a glow on my face and a contentment in my spirit, took a morning rest scooted about on my moped took some photos and decided to go back and surf Dreamlands until sunset again, two great days and life is feeling good..Sliced my feet on the reef unfortunately so a few more cuts and grazes to add to the ever growing list of reef scars.
