When arrived to Puri there was a crew staying that were friends with the owner Steve. It was what can be best described as a luxury frat house above world class waves. I lucked out and had immediate friends to surf with and better yet go to town and carouse around with. Town meaning Kuta which is more or less Cabo but cheaper and better. The waves have not been less than a couple feet overhead the entire time and has been upwards of double overhead.
I bought a board from one of Steve's friends in town and after finding fins, booties and a leash, I am set up. The scooters that we rent all have surf racks so we can cruise around the island looking for waves.
Today I surfed Impossibles and Dreamland in perfect conditions - absolutely amazing waves, except for getting pounded by the occasional sneaker sets. When I say pounded I mean DRILLED - like sitting in a washing machine on high.
I have met a lot of people that live in Bali but have been traveling around with Josh and Maria - Josh runs an organic restaurant and eco-farm in Costa Rica and Maria is the new manager of Puri with a luck meeting from the old manager when they checked in. Gabe is traveling with us now to - he works on the Trilogy boats in Maui.
The first night in Bali I was pretty beat from traveling so had a massage and went to bed. Day two surfed Ulu Watu on a borrowed board - more like floated and tried not to drown and night two was - wow - insane. But the walk down the trail to the beach brought us face to face with "King Monkey" - the alpha male of the monkey crew here at Puri. We already stole Josh's dorian and was sitting in the middle of the trail eating it with a couple buddies and was not wanting to let us pass. We had to throw rocks, hit with sticks and finally knock with a surfboard and then six grown men ran for their lives down the trail to get away from the King. Steve said that was the worst he has encountered from the King and will shortly be getting a BB gun to teach him a lesson. Not much a lesson as the next morning he stole someones watch and threw it off a cliff after chased just to spite us. We went out that night in Kuta and more or less burnt the town down.
After a mellow third night going to the Ulu Watu temple for a going away blessing for Enrique, I checked into Kuta and met up with part of the Puri crew for their last night in Bali. Wow again. Randomly two of the crew were from LA and one works at Chaya right around the corner from my place in Venice. Kuta lives up to it's reputation as a train wreck.
Kuta has a really fun beach break right in town and surfed that a couple times and up the coast at Caweng (?) where I got a nice little cut on my toes.
More good luck came my way when through a friend we came across a three bedroom villa with a pool in Seminyak (the Beverly Hills or Palisades of this side of the island) for $55 a night. Split three ways we were living in luxury. One great thing about Bali is one can eat at the finest places on the island for less than $15 a meal (with drinks) - most of the time less than $10. This would be the equivalent of a many course meal and many drinks at Sushi Roku or something fancier than Houstons for those at home. Seminyak and Kuta brought too many stories for this blog but good fun times were had. With the new swell arriving yesterday we came back to Puri for more waves and relaxation and less Kuta.
Last night surfed a break called Secrets and was punished by a huge sneaker set that brought all our crew except myself and Josh to the beach. I was a little freaked and after a couple more sets paddled about as fast as I have ever paddled into shore (which wasn't really a shore but a cliff with a tiny ledge to get out of the water. I lucked out and made it safely in and was greeted by a family of about 30 monkeys sitting on the giant boulder that guarded the walk back to Puri. I wish I had my camera as it was some scene.
My plans are to stay in Bali until about the 10th or 14th - I think my Visa runs out the 10th but I might stay a couple extra days. The next couple days will travel to more smaller islands offshore and to a town called Ubud.
Nick, I was on the Trilogy in 1979 when the old man was still living. We damn near lost him when the boat hit a hugh swell off Maui he almost went overboard.
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