Surfing Pics

I spent the past year traveling, a few months in Mexico, a few in Australia, New Zealand and nearly 2 months in Indonesia where I ended my trip. The primary purpose of the trip was to surf, everyday, for a year. There isn't much photographic evidence that I did such a trip and surfed as much as I did. However, I was fortunate enough to bring these snaps home to show my friends and family that I was really surfing on my trip....

Small, sunset surf at Lakey Pipe, Sumbawa. Taken ealry August when I was there for two weeks, by Erik Aeder.


Another small day at Lakey Pipe, great conditions , another gorgeous day. Photo also taken by Erik. Lakey Pipe, photo by Erik.


After Sumbawa I flew back to Bali and spent a few days at Uluwatu. I didn't surf the first day there, mostly because I wasn't that keen on surfing with a 150 people.
The next day was small and I got out and got some good waves, despite the crowds. I ran into the fisrt kneeboard surfer of my trip, a guy who I actually met while surfing in Margaret River WA in may.
The next day the surf was a bit bigger, conditions were great and I actually ran into 4 other kneeboard surfers, three from USA and one from Aussie. We had a great surf in the morning and getnerall just had a really fun day.
It was the perfect ending to the perfect trip.
I caught one of my best waves of the year and had an awesome surf at an epic spot on my new Flashpoint.
Uluwatu August 19.
Uluwatu August 19, 20008

Waiting in Singapore..

Just killing a bit of time in the singapore airport.
The Indo extravaganza wrapped up with flare and was a totally smooth ending to a great year. A few dozen more hours of traveling and I will be home sweet home.
I still can't believe it all went down the way it did, and it's already been a year. I can't wait to do it all agin in 2009!!!
I will be posting my sumbawa pictures when I return, and doing the last posts for Uluwatu, and bali.
take care.

Back in Bali

I just spent nearly two weeks in Sumbawa. It really was geat, but you'll all hear about it later when I post some pics. I am safely back in Bali, staying up at Ulluwatu for a few nights. I flight out of Denpasar on Wednesday, it will be a long haul home.
Definately looking forward to a steak, and good bc brew and the sweet company of friends and family.
See you soon.

Clean Laundry

I am not usually a big fan of other people doing my laundry, let alone folding it, but it is a luxury I really have enjoyed while being here....

More Ubud Pictures

I had a wonderful and relaxing time in Ubud. I saw a lady who fixed my neck up, I enjoyed brekki by the pool every morning at Green Fields, I ate many great meals and generally had a good time being a tourist. Being a tourist is a strange thing to me as I usually forgo the usually tourist attractions to surf. A surf break in land in a touro hub allowed me to get out of my boardies and join the rest of the touros doing what touros do....

Brekki By the pool. Fruit, banana pancake and rich and delicious bali coffee.

Pool at Green Fields
Statue at green fields.

Jegog performance in Ubud. The large instruments are made out of big pieces of bamboo, they provide music to accompany the dancing.
The under belly of the jegogs.

I think this guy is part of the "happy rice harvest dance"

Water buffalo dancer.

Water buffalo up close.
One of these is not like the other.....it really is rediculous being a tourist sometimes!!

Me and my new balinese dancer friend!!!!

Balinese Macaques, they are apparently very successful primates.

Baby macaque.

"Official Bananas," I didn't engage in this activity of buying bananas and feeding the monkeys. I preferred to quietly stand back and do sketches of the monkeys. However, the masses of touros were really loving this strange interaction with the primates. I wasn't keen on getting that close, and have you ever seen monkey teeth? they are huge and yellow and very sharp looking.

Ubud markets. A busy place where you can buy whatever you want or "need". I didn't buy anything. But it was good to check out.

Produce at the market. The colorful baskets at the back are full of fresh flower petals, which are used for the offerings.
Presumably, the basket at the top of this womans bundle is an offering. It is really incredible the things these women can carry on their heads, and yes it is only the women.

A few random snaps from the lembongan era

These three photos were taken by my mate lynn, he really knows what he's doing with the digital era- he must of read the manual. Well not the first one of the boat.

This is a picture of a boat that is very similar to the public boat which goes from Sanur (bali) to Nusa Lembogan. You get a bit wet when you get on, unless you request some assistance-I think I would have been too big for such service, but I was wearing boardies.
Chillin' in the bamboo zone & morning bali coffee.
Ride out the the breaks in Captain Aquas boat. Yes, turquoise and red are my favourite colours.

New Stick

The new custom kneeboard. Specially made for me, for Indo. Another gorgeous Flashpoint.
Been on it now a few times and it goes unreal.

The new stick.

in the beginning there was Kuta

So there are a few good things in Kuta, other than surf: good cheap meals, decent cheap accomadation and random things you would never witness at home.

A fantastic, well rounded, delicious meal for under 2 bones. There are some good things in Kuta.
Simple, cheap accomodation in Kuta, includes a banana jaffle, fruit and coffee- only about 6bucks a night.


And in the beginning there was also opetro in old vodka bottles for all the scooters and cars that go "BEEP BEEP!! VROOM VROOM" in Kuta.

Medewi, Second week of july 2008

A few snaps of Medewi.
(Sometimes I am really bad about remembering to take good pictures....unless it's with my mind camera.)
Medewi Sunset

Medewi. low tide, small swell.

Medewi, black sand and river rock beauty.

Playgrounds

This is proof, I have been surfing. My mates just happened to catch these pics from the pontoon near playgrounds break on Lembongan. The scramble at Playgrounds.
Playgrounds Sequence #2, the take off

Playgrounds sequence #3
A very fun wave this left is, and it remains less sketchy than the right as it breaks in deeper water, which makes coral less of a hazard.

Retrospect

A bit of Pre-Indo lovin' for the Newie.....

Leaving Lembongan

I had few great surfs on Lembongan last week. One big day I found myself caught inside on the outgoing tide with rising swell at Shipwrecks, it was quite scary for me. The seaweed stakes provide and added element of hassle and potential danger- I surfed the other big days at Playgrounds, which doen'st really deserve that name. Playgrounds is both a right and left, and the right gets quite shallow with the lowering tide. The left is great fun, and stays pretty deep most tides. Although, if you stuff up the take off for either direction on a lower tide there is potential to scrape the coral, which did happen to me. So Playgrounds, well the name is debateble. I was pretty surfed out from the past few weeks. If you can believe it- but its hard work...I hurt my neck while surfing and so I find myself in Ubud, relaxing, and recharging before I head to Sumbawa for more waves.

I have found and old mate of my dad's who has a lovely hotel here, Green Fields. Adjacent to his place are lush green rice fields-hence the name! I will be relaxing here for the next few days.

T Rex is still with me and he has found and architectural detail at Green Fields which he is quite fond of.

Nusa Lembongan

Thanks to the lessons on picture cropping and re-sizing, given to me by my new friend Lynn, I was able to post some pictures of my time on Nusa Lembongan. It was a great week I spent there, mostly just surfing and eating good food and hanging out with good people.
I had received a few good pics from Lynn and Vou, which were on my MP3, but it apparently has a virus and I can't recover the photos to a computer- so heres what I do have for you.
More to come.

Temple in the village on Lembongan.

We were walking to the village along the road and I spotted this very strange stand, with a very strange and out of place mural. I have no idea or understanding of what it means. ???

Grey arvo on Lembogan.

The last night on Lembongan called for a fish Fest at Ketuts Warung, if you ever go to Lembongan Ketuts is great value. She cooks Indonesian food and has done a cooking course in Ubud and learned to cook Thai, so she also makes good thai food. I had fruit salad here every mornign and they were absolutely epic.
The fish is a small grilled tuna, served with veggies, rice, stewed tomatoes and a heaping little plate of very, very hot green chillis, mixed with lime and onion.
THese ar my new mates from San Diego, Vou and Lynn. We surfed heaps together, enjoyed many meals and laughed a lot while on Lembonmgan.

Should I really buy this hat?

Seaweed.

A coral wall and the seaweed harvest being dried. Seaweed production plays a large roll for locals on Lembongan, seaweed is harvested and dried and exported for further processing.

Street scene in the village of Nusa Lembongan.

This is the view from my room at Linda's bungalows on Nusa Lembongan, I refer to it now as the chicken room. They raise cocks next door, alledgedly for cockfights on a nearby island. It was fine the nights I was totally exhausted from surf, but otherwise a bit irritating. Still better than the beep beep vroom vroom in kuta!

Exodus from Kuta

Kuta was driving me Krazy last week, what with all the beep beep and vrooom vroom.

I booked a lift up the west coast and hit up a place called Medewi for the last week. The drive up is a bit of choas, with all the crazy vehicles, but quite scenic. Once you get out of the urban adjacent to Kuta, its just heaps of tropical greenery and rice paddys.
Today on my return there was a whole truck load of eggs in the road, comical in some way to see so many eggs, but tragic in it's own right.
Medewi....
A small street with a few small hotels and small restoraunts leads to the beach. The beach is rocky and sandy, dark grey round stones and black sand. Lush tropical folliage as the backdrop. Medewi is actually a small Muslim fishing village and a few times a day over a loud PA you here the prayers and chanting. There are many fishing boats lined up on the beach and they add much color to the otherwise grey beachscape.
The wave is a really mellow lefthander and is best surfed on a high tide or just before or after. There are many touros up there, from all over the globe and lots of beginer surfers. A bit crazy much of the time. It was glassy nearly every morning. The best I surfed it was about head high and glassy on only a few mornings. Its a fun wave and lots of the local boys surf and are all quite friendly.
Many people, as usual, were curious about the kneeboard and I was happy to chat with those who inquired, and I got some good feed back from a few kind folks who liked the style and appreciated the less common form of surfing.
It was a nice week.
I didn't do much exploring, basically just going to an from the beach to surf twice a day, and to out to eat down at the beachside warung.
It was a chilled out week, and I did enjoy the solitude, the company and a few cold bintangs. I ate a few of the best pancakes of my life and got the worst electric shock I have ever had that made my hair go crazy. I'll admit I didn't wear my seat belt on a few occasions.....but we were'nt driving fast.

I will be in Kuta for the next few days, catching up with a few things and then I will be off to Nusa Lembongan for a few days.....then maybe Sunbawa. I am easing into all the surf here, as I heard it can be quite dangerous if you aren't careful. I will be working my way up to more challenging waves, and hopefully there will be some pictorial evidence, so you can believe that I really have been surfing.
Feel free to comment, if you can figure out how.
See ya,
KK

Bali

So, I arrived late last night.
The flight was on time and I was picked up from by the airport, by a driver, who came highly recommended by an aussie mate of mine. He was waiting when I got off the plane, complete with a sign that said my name, I felt so special. He dropped me at a hotel, clean and quiet, even though its in Kuta. It has a large garden and is set a bit back from the busier streets. It's simple in every way: a shower with only cold water, a ceiling fan and a decent double bed. I hit the hay once I got settled.

Breakfast is included which was a toasted banana sandwich, and fruit and a coffee. By toasted sandwich I mean the sandwich is toasted, not the bananas. The coffee is cowboy coffee, but it's rich and delicious in it's own right. When I bit into the sandwich, I thought is was going to be cheese, but was pleasantly surprised by the warm, sweet banana in the middle. The perfect accompaniment to the bali/cowboy coffee.

I had an average surf at the beach break near the hotel.

After my surf I was wandering in a daze looking for a place to eat, and low and behold I ran into a mate of mine from Phillip Island. He was able to give me the skinny on a few things, ie. surf spots, good food and transport. etc. It was perfect timing because I needed a bit of guidance. It was great to catch up with him and his family. I had spent a few days with them last december in Phillip island, and its always good to catch up with friends.

Tomorrow I plan to have a surf at Kuta reef, it's always a bit daunting surfing a new spot, but I an stoked about it.

Just a few Aussie hours left

Everything went smooth as this morning, a got my boarding pass and only a few hours to go until take off.

Count down is on

I feel like a child on christmas eve....
Visa/passport-check
cash- check
surfboards-check
helmet-check
stoke-check
Off tomorrow morning!

Preparations for Indonesia

I have just returned from a lovely stay down on the south coast. A few days rest, a few surfs, dood food and time with friends. No complaints, as usual.
I am back in the Sydney area, gearing up for the trip to indo, the last leg of the surfstavaganza. Then the bitter-sweet return to Beautiful British Columbia.
See you soon.