Reef cuts, monkeys, fish, boulders, tides, excitement, ponds, emptiness, fast, slow, rocks, caves, lost, nervousness, walking, rushing, more monkeys, adventure, misadventure, sea snakes, timing, watching, waiting, turtles & commitment are just a few things that come to mind when attempting to paddle out and attempting to paddle in when surfing “Impossibles” in Bali.
It all starts from when your standing on top of the steep massive cliffs above watching the reef and waves to gauge when its go time. When that time comes, the adventures and misadventures begin. The first adventure, getting to the paddle out zone. This takes a good 20 minutes starting with descending down the cliff via a lot of dodgy ‘stairs’ through the local Warungs and onto the beach. From here you have two options. The first is a paddle straight out the back over the reef being virtually untouched by a wave and then a long kilometre paddle up the reef to the take off zone. Although a gruelling paddle, it is the easiest and safest way. The second option, which we did twice a day for 5 days straight, was certainly more of an adventure. So a nice walk along the beach then you start walking around huge boulders and over rocks to get through. Some of the boulders are so huge they have created caves. Monkeys would be sitting on the rocks as you passed by, some friendly, some not so friendly…Sometimes a few wrong turns but eventually you come out at the reef leading out to the jump off section.
It’s a long section of reef with some waves taking you up to 300-400 metres but there is really only a 10 metre spot that is the best to jump off the reef from. This is where the timing factor comes into play. Paddle out at the wrong time and be ready to be cleaned up and washed over 100 metres down the reef. When where talking over 6ft surf the nerves kick in as you wait for the right opportunity. It’s best to wait until a set comes, then soon as it subsides, jump off and paddle like a manic until you get out the back. You don’t want to have one on the head right after you jump in as it’s shallow, sharp & scary. Myself and Brett did this routine every morning & every afternoon for 5 days straight as the waves just kept pumping. I’ll never for get those 5 days. However, a lost count of the amount of surfers I saw get absolutely smashed while trying to get out with broken boards and leg ropes everywhere. It’s always a sigh of relief once out the back and the real fun begins. However, sooner or later every session has to come to an end. Normally by this time you are exhausted and paddling hundreds of metres down the reef to get in, although closer to home, is not an option. So it’s going straight in and walking back along the cliff and reef.
Getting in at low tide vs high tide are completely different experiences. Low tide involves getting a wave in but knowing when to slow up as if you take the whitewater all the way you’ll end up on dry reef. I saw one guy do just this and when he should up on the reef he had no fins. Funny thing was he still had a huge smile on his face. If you don’t make it in far enough you end up in the impact zone, not a good place to be, contending with waves breaking on your head in very shallow water with very sharp reef below. Once on the shallower reef you are safe and the adventure back continues. A slow walk over the long semi dry reef with sea snakes, starfish and pool sections as you cross over the reef to the beach. Then the walk through the caves, around the boulders, past the monkeys and over the rocks to you come out to the clear section of the beach. The one time we came in at high tide, we definitely should have gone the easier option of paddling the few hundred metres down the reef. We couldn’t go our normal walk over the rocks and through the caves as there was too much water and waves crashing and covering them. We had to end up scaling parts of the cliff, struggling through trees, climbing rock walls until we reached a Warung which joined us to a staircase leading back down to the open beach. That was a mission!
A walk along the beach brings you to the final part, walking up the steep cliff to where we begun. This climb will get you every time. Once up the top to our Villa it’s straight into the pool and if it’s the morning, a healthy replenishing juice, or if it’s the afternoon, a nice cold Bintang. Either way, that moment is bliss!
