I had spent many years dreaming about surfing Bali long before my first trip. I studied all the waves, the best tides, the best winds, the dangers, basically any information I could find! However, none of this seemed to help me when I had my very first surf in Bali!
The excitement was at its height when we arrived at our Villa on our first day in Bali. It was a late beautiful afternoon and we overlooked the infamous Bukit Peninsula above the steep cliffs that led down to the surf. The surf was pumping so I wasted no time in waxing up and getting out there. I had two choices. I could surf ‘Impossibles’ to my left, which I had been dreaming about for years or Bingin, to my right. With the sun soon to fade I decided it was easier and quicker to go down to Bingin. As it would turn out, I wouldn’t get to surf ‘Impossibles for another few years, but that’s another story. I’m serious, it is another story, go check it out ‘Taking it to the max’.
Bingin is a very short, though mechanically perfect lefthander over a very sharp coral reef. At low tide it’s a steep fast take off straight into the tube then time to get one turn in before it reaches the sketchy inside dry reef. Like a lot of great waves in Bali it begs you to keep going but the trick is to know when to get off or you will pay the inevitable price for being too greedy.
So off I went down the steep cliff for my very first surf in Bali. Got down the cliff and suddenly realized I had forgoten my booties. Of all places in Bali you most want to protect your feet, IT’S BINGIN! The sun was starting to set and I didn’t want to bother walking all the way back up the cliff to the villa so I just said to myself ‘you’ll be right’. Mmmm……. I felt like I already had the place wired as I had seen ample surf clips and read ample about it so headed out with no hesitation. It was a very low tide and 6-8ft with a lot of surfers on it. One of the obstacles is that the take off area is very very small and it’s a challenge to get a wave when it’s firing, as it was this day. The locals also take off way inside and even if your in the best position, if a local wants the wave, the local gets the wave. In saying this I managed to get a couple of ok waves as my confidence grew. The next wave I caught, I got greedy. It was a perfect wall and I got a couple of fun turns in as I saw it line up on the inside. The wave wasn’t that big, around 4-5ft, but still intimidating never the less. I raced across the inside section but as I looked for an exit, I realized I had left it too late and was about to end up on dry reef. I did my best to push out through the back of the wave but still got punished being dragged across the sharp coal reef until it planted me on the inside dry reef. Although a little rattled I felt ok until I started feeling pain in my foot. I lifted my foot to see blood gushing out and realized then I had done some decent damage. It was a slow walk across the reef to the beach where one of the locals in a Warung asked me to come up so he could look at. By this time my wife (aka Nurse Leanne) had also walked down to see me. Big gash between my big toe & the next with a few minor ‘reef tattoos’ on my back. My board had copped a beating too so that was to be fixed by ‘Doctor Ding’, one of the Bingin locals.
I couldn’t believe this had happened on my first surf on our first day in Bali ever! Luckily with Nurse Leanne attending to my injury day and night, I was still able to surf every day for the rest of the trip. However this included a lot of cleaning & redressing, removing sand and coral particles from the cut, after every surf, and making sure there was no infection. It didn’t really heal up until we got home and I had time out of the water.
Moral of the story, DON’T GET GREEDY!
