GETTING OUT
Monkeys, fish, turtles, tides, ponds, emptiness, fast, slow, rocks, boulders, caves, lost, walking, rushing, reef cuts, hold downs, wipeouts, sea snakes, timing, watching, waiting, commitment, adrenalin, excitement, nervousness and scarcity are just a few words that come to mind when I recall this ‘Impossibles’ adventure.
Brett and I watch the line up intensively from our bungalow on the top of the hill throughout the morning. We were waiting for the tide to push in when we knew the waves jump from a playful two to three feet to a solid six feet and only then would we begin our descent. The adventure starts from that moment as just getting to the line up is one in itself. This takes a good twenty to thirty minutes starting with descending down the cliff face via little tracks with around a hundred dodgy ‘stairs’ weaving through the cliff and through the local Warungs onto the beach. From here you have two options. The first is to paddle straight out the front through the lagoon before walking to the edge of the reef where you jump off and paddle out the back. This way also means you are virtually untouched by a wave, as long as you time the jump, but then you have to paddle hundreds of metres up the reef to get to the take off zone. Although a gruelling paddle, it is the easiest and safest way. The second option, which we took, was certainly more of an adventure. A nice stroll along the beach before 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, we played with the friendly ones, desperately avoided the not so friendly ones. A few wrong turns and dead ends later we came out into the open. Then it’s a slow walk over the long semi dry reef with sea snakes, starfish, and pond sections to the jump off spot on the edge. As we appeared out of the last cave and I caught a glimpse of the break, things became serious with the anticipation turning to nerves and even fright, for me anyway. It was massive! A lot bigger than I had anticipated from the top of the hill. Thoughts were entering my mind to turn back, with Brett by my side, that wasn’t an option. I had only surfed it twice before when it was a lot smaller, so I certainly didn’t have the place wired as such.
It’s a very long section of reef with some waves taking you up to three hundred to four hundred metres or more, but there are only a small number of spots along the reef where it is best to jump from. This is where the timing factor comes into play. A very critical moment. Paddle out at the wrong time can be costly and you may be cleaned up and washed way down the reef, or even worst picked up and slammed back onto the dry reef. When the swell is pushing six feet plus, this becomes more and more hairy. The nerves had well and truly kicked in as we waited for our opportunity standing at the reef’s edge. It’s best to wait until a set comes, then soon as it subsides, jump off and paddle like a maniac until you get out the back. So, this is what we did timing it perfectly and making it out without any consequence.
THE SESSION
I consider myself an experienced surfer. Surfed for many years. Surfed many locations. But on this particular day I felt I was way out of my comfort zone. It’s called ‘Impossibles’ because normally you can’t make it all the way down the line as it sections and closes out. However, after our first few waves we decided to rename it ‘Makeables’ as we were getting very long waves all the way down toward Bingin. Ideal swell direction, ideal tide. Ideal wind.
Once out the back we realised that it was only us and a couple of others sitting at this section of the reef so of course started frothing to the max. I sat quite wide as was seeing some wide bombs and I did not want to be caught by any of these! Even with Brett, who has surfed it before, waving me more inside I wanted nothing of it. I wanted to ease into it. After about ten minutes of waiting, my first opportunity came with a wide wave appearing and I was in the perfect spot. My heart started racing as I saw the wave approaching and moved into position. Feeling quite nervy about what I was paddling into, I paddled hard. The stiff offshore breeze was holding me back, making me paddle even harder. When I felt I was on the wave, I stood up taking a steep drop to have a perfect wave stand up in front of me. This wave gifted me with a long wall which I made the most of with big drawn out bottom turns then off the top again and repeat all the way down the line until the close out section appeared and it was time to get off before the death trap. The wave dares you to keep going but if you go past a certain point reef carnage is inevitable! I kicked out of that first wave with such satisfaction and huge a smile from ear to ear. Then a quick paddle dash back out the back to safety. Followed a hefty paddle back up to the take off zone. After a couple of wider ones, I gained more confidence and slowly crept deeper and deeper inside.
The inside section had the most waves with a handleable size at around six feet, with some larger ones too, but every once in a while, these eight foot plus bombs would appear breaking way further out and mowing down the line up. Every so often we would paddle out waiting for these bomb sets, but as a long wait, we would end up drifting in to get some smaller ones and of course in doing so get cleaned up when these bombs came. But even the six footers packed a punch. Brett took off on this one wave only to be thrown over the falls. I could see his board tombstoning and it was taking a while for him to surface. It came to a point where I started to become worried and was about to paddle over to him when he finally popped up in relief to us both. A couple of times I wiped out and had my hands cut from trying to keep my body off the reef. Better hands than something more serious. I remember been launched off the lip on a wave thinking it was a certainty I was going to hit the reef, but thankfully didn’t. We did manage to catch a couple of the bomb sets as well though. You could see these swells coming from way out toward the horizon up toward Uluwatu. Adrenaline would run high at that moment as you had a minute or so before the set would unleash on the reef. The drops on these bombs seemed to take an eternity before you would then race down the line, sometimes the fastest I had gone on a wave, making sections where you knew you did not want to fall! Such an adrenaline rush.
Even just sitting out in the water was glorious. I saw huge colourful fish through the crystal clear water swimming below. I saw a huge dugong fish and at one stage a turtle popped its head up right in front of my board as if to say hello. We were diving down to the reef during the lulls investigating the wonderful underwater world. What a sight. It’s quite amazing that you get these long lulls where the ocean seems to go flat, even if just for a few minutes. Then the swell lines appear on the horizon again, and suddenly it all changes and delivers chaos. This is also why a lot of people get into trouble in Bali. They take a second to look, think it’s really small, paddle out and then get annihilated by the sets when they come. Rule of thumb is to always look at the surf here for a good ten to fifteen minutes before you even think about paddling out!
We both took some real beatings this session and had some nasty hold downs, but we also rode some of the best waves we ever had. Well worth the trade off. However, sooner or later every session must come to an end.
GETTING IN
By the end of our session, we were completely exhausted. The adrenaline surges, the excitement, the beatings, the hold downs and the long paddle outs all took its toll after a good couple of hours. The thought of paddling hundreds of metres down the reef to get in, although easier, was not an inviting option for us. So, it’s going straight in and walking across the reef and back along the cliff face to the beach before climbing back up the stairs. In hindsight, we should have paddled.
The first mission is just to get to dry reef. Perfect timing is essential here or you will be smashed on dry reef. A couple of times we tried, but then waves came, and we had to scramble back out past the break. Eventually our opportunity came, we paddled our lives out and made it far enough onto the dryer reef to avoid any problems. Then began the slow reef walk to the lagoon, followed by a paddle across that to the shoreline. However, once we got close, we realised we couldn’t go the same way back that we came as the tide was too high and made it impossible. We ended up scaling parts of the cliff, struggling through trees, climbing rock walls, all with surfboards in hand, until we finally reached a Warung halfway up the cliff face which joined us to a staircase leading back down to the open beach. That was hectic I can tell you and I won’t be doing it that way ever again!
Finally on the beach we continued to where we started at the bottom of the cliff face, gathered what energy we had left and started the climb up the hundred odd stairs back to our bungalow. This climb will get you every time. Once up the top to our bungalow we collapsed straight into the pool. That moment was absolute bliss! We then started our recovery process which included lots of cold drinks, lots of snacking and resting. Afterall as soon as the tide started draining out again in a couple of hours, we were heading right back out there!
That swell just kept on giving. We surfed it twice a day, either side on the high tide, for five days straight! Each day the swell dropped slightly but up until the fifth day, the waves stayed overhead with plenty of long makeable ones. A five day run that I’m not sure I’ll ever get to experience again at this location. But it’s certainly not impossible, either is the wave if you score it in the right conditions…
