JULY - MONTH OF SURPRISES

July was a month of many surprises on Bali and Indonesia…The so expected swell of June 26th arrived but the conditions were not so clean and it only got better on the following days;
Actually that has already become routine around here, on the peak of the swell the wind blows side and the swell gets washed out and it only starts to clean out when its dropping…things of the new times…I’ve scored some nice photos of G-Land from my good friend Gene of this swell in the end of June that was the best in a while.

After that so many things took place that I rather list them all instead of going into details explaining one by one so this way each person can take their own conclusions.

- A Dengue fever outbreak is going hard on the island. Rains out of place and time on the dry season help proliferating the transmitter mosquitoes and fatal cases have already been registered; I, as a good Bali lover couldn’t be out of that and ended up being 2 weeks out of combat with this Dengue. Its good to mention that if some flu symptoms occur (headache, high fever, muscle pain, etc…) one should not take Aspirins under any circumstances to get the fever down and should only take Tylenol. The Aspirin has an acid in its chemical composition that can be very bad and even deadly in case of hemorrhagic Dengue; In doubt the best thing to do is to go have a blood test in the hospital. The best medicine I could find, really miraculous, was in a Chinese medicine shop in Denpasar, nothing like having the Oriental medicine available at those times, only 2000 years ahead of us.

- We also had some typhoid going around and my good friend Made Lana stayed in bed for a while but after some of the miraculous Chinese medicine I also got it for him he was already marking his territory in Ulus again, good to see…That not to mention the swine flu but that one from what I’ve heard hasn’t affect this area so much.

- The absurd crowd of kooks from countries with no surfing tradition such as Germany, Russia, Poland, etc…it’s completely out of control!! All happy and smiling going over the falls head first on wave sets at Uluwatu and Impossibles putting not only their lives at risk but everyone elses…the circus really is in town, nowadays the kooks have come out strong and think they have the right to share the line up with more experienced surfers…nothing that a few lessons here and there won’t put the situation back to normal again.

- The unplanned growth of the island also worries, many buildings “popping up” all over the place; At Dreamland (now called “NEW KUTA”) a night club have been built on the cliff edge and a golf course and luxury resort are now located where it use to be the bush on the way to the beach…It has become routine the parties at Seminyak and Oberoi where anyone could swear to be in New York or Paris, depressing!! The paradisiacal island of Bali is now more like the city of Bali so urban its becoming…people wearing leather shoes drinking champagne by the beach now is the thing…specially at Kudeta and surroundings…and a “viva” to the city of Bali!!

- The crazy weather that is going on the moment…on July 22nd I went for the first time to Uluwatu wearing long pants, shirt and tennis shoes right at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and I had to stop 3 or 4 times because of the rain…I arrived at Uluwatu and surfed, also for the first time in my life, the Outside Corner with heavy rain and black sky…Sudi, from the warung where I always stay said that this was the first time in her life that she was seeing rain in the afternoon in mid July at Uluwatu…

- After the end of June’s swell we had 3 swells on July and two of those swells were of strong intensity and were showing over 3.3 mtr (minimum 8 feet on the coast) but it arrived with half or less of the expected size…twice in a row!! One swell in special was showing 3.7 mtr on the forecast websites but when it arrived it didn’t get bigger than 5 feet at Uluwatu…Besieds that the wind has been blowing in many different directions and with different intensity on a same day and we have been getting strong rains at night and sometimes even on the afternoon..the scientific explanation is that high pressures have been parked around Indonesia, I prefer to believe that all of this is the result of a global warming and of our pure negligence with the planet!

It looks like we will go back to the times when there was no internet and we had to go to the beach to “check” the conditions and if there was swell or not…In fact, in this days of crazy weather no place can be compared to the Mentawaii islands in terms of consistency and diversity of waves. With islands and waves facing every direction , whatever direction the wind is blowing there is always a spot getting it offshore…The reports I have been receiving from there are by far the best these days and the number of people looking for me to organize their trips there has increased considerably. I would like to thank all my client and friends for organizing their trips and deals with me, it’s thanks to you guys that Im still on the field with the BALI SURF CONNECTION!!

On a real sad note we had a terrorist attack in Jakarta; we leave here registered our deepest feelings to all the families of the bomb victims of the hotel Marriot an Ritz Carlton. Soon after the attack Bali got a bit quiet for a few days but as it is high season everything is back to normal to the stoke of the party animals…The amount of young single girls in Kuta, in majority from Europe, is also something worth mentioning…any time at day or night it looks like a parade!! Beautiful blonde nymphs with suntanned skin and turquoise blue or green emerald eyes are cruising in packs all over the place…and from what I’ve heard the night is going “WILD”…but its good to be carefull…there are some dangerous rumors about what could happen on the night clubs in Bali, specially in Kuta and about what was discovered and not opened to the public recently…just in case…

The rest everybody knows, despite the traffic, the attacks, the diseases and the crazy weather…it’s still really hot, the beaches remain beautiful, the gastronomic tourism just gets bigger and better, the Balinese people keep making their offerings and smiling, the swells will come again and when they break with good conditions the waves here are some of the best in the world, fit and beautiful people keep crowding the island and the vibe still magic for those that don’t let things blur their vision …Im one of them, love Bali more than ever!!

BALI BAGUS!!!!!!!!!

Special thanks:

ULUWATU PHOTO (www.uluwatuphoto.com) for the high quality surfing pictures and local people of Bali.