New years day 2010 4am- Kuta, Bali
Alarm on my Phone rings... No Power on in town again, i have to catch a 6am flight so the quick shower & pack bags in the dark routine begins. First time i had stayed in my mates Villa so the scramble with the Iphone as a torch got me by.
Out to the front of the villa complex, waking up the security boys to give me an Ojek (motorcycle taxi) to the busy Denpasar airport. There was clear skies with no wind & still a few leftover bangs, pops & whistles from the Revelers who had left over fireworks & energy from NYE. 5 minutes short of the airport the solitary cloud in the dimly lit sky found us & loaded buckets of rain! All moist and checked in fine, Gotta love priority seating on AirAsia!
Thru turnstiles in Singapore airport moving with Cues of pensive jet-setters, doing their own personal security scanning of fellow travelers with eyeballs of judgement, along with Immigration, Customs & Health officials doing their official stamping & screening. Hello its Luggage collection time! As this was one of several legs of my promo tour i had sent fresh boards ahead of me from the Diverse Factory at home via unaccompanied baggage. I had sent them on 21st dec to make sure i had left plenty of time for them to arrive before me.
1st hurdle, The cargo office was not answering the phone! it was new years day... oh-oh, public holiday! The helpful information desk sent us in the direction of the freight terminal, as there were planes coming in she thought we might find someone to help us. The Taxi ride was pretty much a whole loop around the airport. Once we were thru the security checks leaving our passports etc, we found our way to the office manned by a 13 y/o kid with a PSP who went to work with his dad! His Dad came thru with some info on the office computer. The boards had not left Australia yet! “maybe tonight sir, please come back tomorrow”. Not good enough, as we were leaving in about 1 hour on the ferry to Malaysia! Ok no new boards, promo material, T-shirts & banners to use at the Monsoon Madness Competition i was going too! Lucky i had a few customers with boards there already to borrow. Its cool I can sell my boards with my heart & hands & my laptop.
Next stop was back to the airport to meet 14 of the crew from Phuket board-riders, Thailand, They joined us for the 20 minute bus ride to the ferry terminal. After another cue-ing session with immigration, Customs etc we were on the Ferry leaving the harbour cruising past Sailboarders racing container ships. Desaru Beach here we come.
Thru the next cues of Customs etc & into 2x Pajeros, with the remainder of the boys & boards piling into a lorry winding along a coast reminiscent of Dunwich at north Straddie complete with calm waters & mangroves. Five minutes into the Drive we turned down a small single lane side road with the Driver explaining in simple english “shortcut” we found ourselves meandering thru palm plantation trees & small settlements of families playing in the afternoon sun. Road signs warned us of Monkeys, Wild Pigs & surprisingly Elephants! I was glad we didn't run into any of them playing in the afternoon sun. Brief glimpses of the ocean didn't look promising for swell as the coastal road took us past seaside hotels from the 80’s, we found our destination of Golden Beach Hotel @ Desaru, Johor, Malaysia. A 4star hotel with a couple of falling stars over years of weekend use with a small beach break right out the front!
a Quick surf check reveals a 1 foot sloppy beach break, but its low tide & looks to have potential banks for the morning! The young guys from Thailand slip out for a couple wet ones, then we are off in the back of a Hilux with 12 others to the local dinner choice. Spicy hot Rice & chicken washed down with ice cold fruit juices... Alcohol is illegal for Malaysians , But no problem for tourists. So for all of us who wanted a beer we drove 10km up the road to the market that had some liquor to buy. We were stopped by a police roadblock! All the visiting guys including myself had left our passports/ID in our room! I am sure the Police must have been happy for the contest to be in town as they let us all off & directed us to the Bottle shop/roadside cafe. $2 cans of Carlsberg special brew @8.8% filled our bags & a couple made sleep come quickly!
Rise & Shine 5am just like home. No-one is up so i take a little walk down to the water to see that the surf is clean & fun looking. Breakfast voucher in hand i head over to the buffet much like any other in the Asian arena. With a full stomach i am off to the contest site. After 10 minutes of looking around the Contest Director Ajill asked me to help out & judge, with five more i was 2nd head judge! A little dismayed on how to judge bodyboarding etc i took on the challenge & learnt pretty quick. I was impressed with the standard of short-boarding with current Malaysian champion Mamat & Bandah Aceh surfer Yudi setting the bar. The waves are much like a japanese beach break or an ordinary gold coast summer windswell beachie. Little left + right hand peaks good for a couple turns if your lucky!
Officially opening the event at 2pm was the minister for tourism Malaysia. Government interest is high in surfing & its related business channels. Pumping music reminicent of early mornings at Double six in Legian, with camo clad army officers patrolling the park & beach admiring the beauty of youth. Malaysia is a strong muslim country so there was a lot of the girls on the beach were wearing veils! Being a Tourist beach town things were pretty relaxed. Surfing Guest of honour for the Event was Dede Suryana from Cimaja in Indonesia
I had an opportunity for promo with Malaysian TV as they were on location filming at Getaway style program, The producer had asked me of the possibilitys of arranging a surf lesson for their “Jennifer Hawkins” style host. Quickly aided by Local surfer girl Brenda we set them up with basic instructions about paddling, standing up & using a legrope etc. My good friend Dede Suryana 2 x Indonesian surfing champ helped by taking the Sharmeen the host into the water to get wet surfing for the 1st time. As entertaining as i was watching her get pounded by the shore break almost loosing here wear the Film crew managed to get the shots they needed. Proceeding onto interviewing me on the merits of board type, design, style & basic construction, fortunatly i had a Diverse board from one of my customers for the high performance example. Making do with a Thailand made minimal for the beginners example. Nice to give a plug to DIVERSE on national Malaysian TV!
Dinner that night was a dodgy beachside resturant, with the hunger being quenched but the taste buds were not! one of the ladys with us managed to find a fly in her fried rice! Jokes aside she did not order Flies with that!
The contest organizers from Bigfoot Industries had arranged for beach party kicking off around 11pm, turning out to be a lot of fun not unlike a full moon party anywhere in Asia, with crew dancing until sunrise to well mixed jungle beats. I took my judging seriously and was in bed by 3am to the Doofing sounds of DJ’s pounding a good beat.
Ground hog breakfast buffet with the contest kicking off at the reasonable time of 9:30am. The waves were a little bigger with a bit more water on it making it fullish. Competition surfers seemed to make the most of the conditions riding the waves that came thru very well. Still struggling with the concept of judging the bodyboards i took a break & wandered the beach stalls looking at all kinds of things from food stalls to Hookah pipes while the sound systems pumped out amping music mixed with a live reggae band on the park stage!
by the afternoon finals the waves had deteriorated as most contests do, with the smaller younger guys looking like favourites to take out the event. Hailing from Cherating the boys were used to long right hand point break waves, getting long rides with perhaps a little too safe manouvres. Contest Winner Yudi from Bandah Aceh put down some powerfull turns taking chance with radical turns over safe long rides. His Gamble payed off winning quite convincingly over the billabong sponsored grommy from Cherating & Malaysian champ Mamet.
A quick speech from the Malaysian tourism minister, followed by retired local army General started the presentation, Handing over certificates of appreciation to sponsors & judges. With prizes being giving to all division winners, where nods & handshakes took prevalence over acceptance speeches. Good thing really as we had 30 mins to say goodbye to all the new friends, pack, checkout of the hotel & catch the last ferry back to Singapore for the day. We had plans of Surfing the Standing wave on Sentosa island at the WaveHouse in Singapore in the morning before our flights back to Bali that evening.
We made the ferry, of course being the last ones there! Once thru all the customs/Immigration rigmarole we had a mission getting 2x taxis with boards! Apparently they dont like to pick up from the ferry terminal because they miss out being able to charge the $10 airport terminal tax. Eventaully we caught one, Heading to our guide Arfian house. he had insisted we stay at his house. Arfian & his wife Radiah were awesome treating Myself & Dede to an amazing dinner in Arab st. By 1am we were in bed after adding countless new friends we had made over the weekend on facebook! So many hookups for new surfing destinations around south east Asia!
Monday morning starts off with a large chinese style breakfast spread prepared by the grandma who had magically appeared at 5am to cook breakfast for guests! Steamed pork buns thru to a dragonfruit salad we were treated like kings. a phone call from our friends at the Wavehouse , The barrel had been put out of action with a loose surface coating & would not be running today or for another 2 weeks! Fortunatly the Flowrider was still running so we went to Sentosa Island anyway. We met the owner and made arrangements for 2 hours on the Flowrider. We found it more difficult than it looked but a lot of fun, Tom (owner) explained to us that it was easier for non surfers to learn than for more experianced professionals becuase a lot of the actions & weight placement was the opposite. Quickly we found that to be true, watching young chinese boys who had never surfed, maybe not even swim before picking it up very quickly. Dede Suryana was blown away how good some of the local regulars were, flipping & sliding, making tricks look easy. I was intrigued by the board designs. Once the staff found out they had a visiting shaper they quickly brought out several shapes for me to try. Our local instructors who were also the current Champions were totally stoked for me to show some interest in making them some new design boards. Several ideas were running thru my head with concaves & sidecut etc. Out with my trusty mini tape measure & iphone to record some basic dimensions. I knew i was going to have trouble sleeping that night creating some new shapes in my head. Tom spoke of the new model wave they were working on installing in the future that may actually bring surfing to the Olympics in a few short years.
After a quick tasty lunch at the WaveHouse we were escorted VIP on a golf buggy limo to the Carpark & Airport promising to return with more time to enjoy thinhgs & a handful of boards to test out. If you have a couple hours spare when you stopover in Singapore, catch the train to Sentosa Island & have a go, you can hire boardies there, lock up your carry on in the baggage lockers & rip it up, you pay by the hour & it sure beats drinking at the Airport watching people while your in transit!
Back on the flight to Bali & a good nights sleep for me....
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