And the Bali chapter of the WCT is over, the Rip Curl “Somewhere”
took place on the waves of Padang-padang and Uluwatu...the
contest was held with perfection and harmony proving to the
world that the island of Bali has infrastructure, high quality
waves and above all enough safety to hold an event of this
proportion...congratulations Bruce irons, champion of this
contest, congratulations athletes, midia, organization, local
people and all involved in the process of reintegration of
the island of Bali on the world surfing scenery.
The contest started at Padang-padang with waves around the
solid 6 to 8 feet scale when Kelly Slater putted on a show
scoring 19,17 of possible 20 on his two best waves and Rodrigo
Dornelles also displayed a really good performance and was
the only Brazilian to win his heat jumping directly to the
third round...on the following days the swell dropped of a
bit and the contest was transferred to Uluwatu where Bruce
Irons proved to be the most versatile and ended up taking
the trophy back home.
Now the circus is moving out of town to the happiness of those
that where waiting anxiously to surf quality waves at Uluwatu
and Padang.
A noticed presence in the contest besides the top 44 of the
elite of the surfing world was Tom Curren, three times surfing
world champion on the 80’s that besides surfing the
spots on the Bukit also gave the crew a musical show at the
Hard Rock Hotel for the opening of the contest.
A positive fact that was noticed is that the locals from Uluwatu
are now getting organized to canalize the water that runs
down the stairs from the top warungs on the entrance at the
Blue Point side...we hope that this canalization organize
the water from all the warungs to end the drippings with funny
smell that run down the cave on the most crowded days at the
warungs.
A sad note was the fact of two simultaneous fire on the ocean
on the Bukit on the afternoon of the 05 of August...first
there was the intended fire that took place at the shipwreck
at Padang-padang and soon after an accidental fire begun at
a few hundred meters out to sea of Temples at Uluwatu that
ended up with an explosion leaving the water full of floating
things, petrol and oil that produced a strong smell during
all day today (06/8)...call it Karma or whatever you want
but it’s too much coincidence...that is Indonesia...
We hope that the future generations learn that you should
never burn trash and that whatever gets burned doesn’t
just go away but only change form instead, most of times liberating
toxic gases harmful to nature specially if its plastic....realy
an ecologic disaster!!!
Good waves to you all, we hope that Nyai Loro Kidul, goddess
of the Asian southeast seas send us a strong swell to wash
away all of our beaches and take everything away...
