Surfs Up

 

On Sunday morning after talking to Rachel on Skype, I went by myself down to the beach. It was raining and I chatted with a local fisherman to ask him where he saw surfers. He was quite interested and I had a good time chatting with him. I got the kayak out and showed him and when I headed off to the point that he indicated he stayed and watched until I came back in. People are super nice here. The surf was ok but not great.

I went back into town and then did a bit of shopping for things for my bike. Particularly a front light as the car lease ran out on Sunday night and I didn't want to lease a car for another month as I hope to buy one this month. I then went to the house of another NZer who is here and is heading home soon. He was having a social gathering and I met another kiwi, Aaron, there who comes on Aceh for holidays inbetween off-shore contracts with oil companies. He comes here to surf. We fell to chatting so a plan was hatched whereby he took my kayak that night at at 6am I was to meet him at the beach to go to the good spot! Monday was a public holiday for Lebaran here (see next blog).

So at 5am when I woke up it was EXTREMELY wet. Not to be perturbed I put on my drytop and started biking. Because of the early hour, the rain and the public holiday there was no one on the roads. It was a fun ride through torrential rain in the dark along the smooth asphalt road with no traffic.

The surf spot was really awesome. The swell was not huge but there is a "peak" where it gets up nice and solid. The waves hold up and were cleaner than any other sea wave I've every surfed. They were getting pretty big too, say 5 to 6ft at the face! An off-shore wind meant that the waves were holding up nicely. I had a great time out there surfing for a few hours :-) I did have a spray-skirt implosion on one big wave so I need to get a beach-ball or something to put on my lap to prevent that. Will also be getting some airbags brought back over soon.

The surf at that spot is good enough that there has been a surfing tourism for 30 years. It is not one of the absolutely best places in the world but it is never crowded so some people prefer it to going to Bali with the hoards.

After surfing for 2.5 hours I biked home again and was very tired. I even took a nap after talking to Rachel briefly.