A Barney in Bali--Day 19, 26JUNE2011 SUN

A Buffet on My Back:

   
    I had some weird dreams last night. The first dream was continuous the whole night long. It had to do with posting blog pictures, and I was pissed off about something not uploading right. Then the next dream was about my friends and I killing someone back home, the authorities were only after me, and I feared going to prison.

    I woke up at 0300 to intense itching. I woke up scratching my back and forearms. I felt the puffiness over my skin. Mosquitoes, blood sucking bastards. I went to the mirror to take a look, and this one bite on my back raised my skin in the shape of Tennessee. I went back to my bed and scanned the room. I saw one right there, glutinous, just marinating on my pillow. The fucker was so full from his feast that he couldn’t move. I whacked it with my towel, and it lay stunned on the mattress. I picked it up and squished it, and so much of my own blood burst out of it that you’d think I’d just cut myself. I looked around more, and I found another culprit on my bed. This guy was so full too, so I just picked him up and washed him down the sink. Nuisances.


It’s Catching Up:


    I wake up at 0530. I’m late. I hear Randy outside. I wake up, grab a glass of water, let him know I’m alive, brush my teeth, and slowly warm up. I’m so tired. I can’t believe how tired I am. My body feels like it needs another lay day, but gawd dammit, we just had one. I shouldn’t be this tired, but my body’s begging to curl back on the mattress and go back to sleep. My warm up is weak, and I give up half way through as soon as the tea’s ready. I’m on auto pilot stumbling to the kitchen. I grab my tea, have a seat next to Randy, and look at the swell report. I fall asleep with my tea in my hand. I wake up a moment later, chug it down, and start packing.


Routines:


    This morning’s different. It’s overcast, there’s a dissipating moisture in the air, and the wind’s already up. It’s about 0630 when we’re on the road. Traffic is light. There’s nothing like being groggy, still waking up, and then getting on a moped with the throttle wide open in the morning dawn. We get more gas, and speed off again. Randy pulls off to the left. I’m not ready for this, so I pull off too and realize we’re stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts.

    Initially, I thought I saw a Dunkin’ Donuts back home in L.A., but I realize that that’s impossible because my friend Hay’s let me know that there aren’t any in California. That’s a damn shame. Not only is their coffee good, but their donuts . . . mmm, mmm, mmmmmmmmmmmm! They’re so good that you’ll spooge in your pants if you eat them too slow. I’d take Dunkin’ over Starbucks any day. I can’t help myself. The Triple Chocolate Donut reels me in with its tractor beam of yummy goodness. Randy opts out on the donut, while I dip it into my coffee until it’s all gone. There’s no rush this morning because the tide is high, and Balangan works best on a low tide. We shoot the morning shit, and by the time we’re done the caffeine has me feeling like a new man. We ask the worker on the way out if they’ll sell me a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee mug, but he says no. I think I’ll have to come back and bribe him with a dollar and fifty cents.


Slick:


    I’m feeling more comfortable on the bike, day by day, but today is a new experience because the road is wet. As we reach higher elevation through the Bukit, the roads are slick. I notice other people taking it a lot easier on the turns. The last thing I want to do is skid out, so I’m cautious as well. It starts drizzling on us once we reach the winding roads of the countryside, but the second we drop in elevation, the road turns dry again.    

Signs:


    The same guy from yesterday is opening up Froggy’s. He tells us that a Brazilian woman with two Balinese chicks are hanging out here. They walk towards us from the beach, and the Brazilian chick doesn’t look at us. I feel bad for her. She’s probably just trying to enjoy her vacation, and everywhere she goes, there’s probably nothing but guys eye-boning her. The Balinese girls are more friendly. They smile as they walk by, and I give a “good morning” to return the kindness. Randy says, “Don’t let me stop you if you want to get out there.” For some reason, I’m really looking forward to the morning’s paddle out more than usual. I was tired earlier, but now I’m happy to be here. Making an odd move, I start suiting up while Randy kicks back, listens to his music, and watches the surf.

    Today’s the smallest day that I’ve seen Balangan. A couple big sets come through, but there are long lulls between them. The sets in between aren’t that big, but there are still barrels out there. The waves actually seem less shouldery and have more building sections.

    I paddle out, expecting the morning crowd to get thicker, but instead, the gloomy weather has people leaving the lineup. The surf gypsy guy is in the water, and his name is Chad. We exchange stories. It turns out that Chad is Canadian and lives in British Columbia. It’s his first time in Bali too, and he’s here for three weeks. He asks if I have the hook up for a good board because the one he bought out here sucks. I give him the bad news that I don’t. Just then, the first wave of a set appears. I go for it, make the drop, but it closes out as I reach the base. Another guy in the water talks to me. “How was that?” He asks.

    “Eh, kind of closed out.”

    “Yeah, they are fast.”

    I paddle by Chad, and he says, “At least you went for it.”

    Just then the most spectacular thing happens. It starts raining, but not just regular rain, it was torrential. It starts off light, gets stronger, and now everyone and the water is being pelted big heavy drops. The ocean turns into an orchestra of splashing. It almost seems instinctual to go underwater to escape it. The atmosphere is a pure sheet of rain. It still looks like there are waves, but I’m still paddling out. A little further and I’ll get the camera out. The second I unzip my boardshort pocket, the rain gets weaker to a faint drizzle. It barely lasted twenty seconds, but it’s a moment that will be ingrained in my memory forever.

    I meet Chad’s friend, Petra. He tells me specifically that he lives here, but he’s Indonesian, not Balinese. The mood in the water is so mellow. I’m here conversing with the guys around me, no one’s cutting anyone off, and there aren’t any hard looks or stares. Another set begins, and I go for the first wave again. This morning they are standing up very fast. My plan was just to have fun and take the shoulders, but it looks like trying to get barreled is all I can do. It’s a steep drop, I barely bottom turn because the lip’s about to throw out, so I just stay close to the face until my vision turns into a little hole of light before it goes black. My biggest fear is the reef. I know I have a little cushion of water between it, but I’m now in the impact zone, the rest of the set’s on the way, and I have to get out of here quick. Petra takes the next wave and doesn’t make the section. I try to duckdive it, but get washed around again. I take one more on the head before I’m in the safe zone. Chad says, “Yeah, it’s getting pretty shallow now. I’m think I’m going in.” I turn to find Petra doing the reef dance back to dry land.

    Randy, an Aussie dude, an Aussie chick, and I are the only surfers in the line up. The lulls are long, but with only four people in the water, it doesn’t matter. I take the first wave of the next set again, and there seems to be a shoulder to it. I pump down the line waiting for the soft face, but the wave stands up the whole ride. I take it as far as I can and jump into the face that’s crashing down. It’s a bad move, but it’s all so fast, and riding waves like this is very new to me. It occurs to me that this is not the morning for finding the shoulder to practice turns. Maybe it’s something in the swell direction, but the waves are trying to go hollow once they start to break.

    It’s my first legit wave buffet since being here. The Aussie chick left, so now there’s only three of us. I do another barrel attempt, but jump into the wave as the lip’s coming down. These are truly Barney moments. A guy I met from Frisco two days ago told me, “It’s Bali, if you can’t get barreled here, then. . . .” Fuck, so is it just me? Does everyone come to Bali and get barreled? If that’s the case, then I should be ashamed of myself. There are just so many factors involved, the main one being the reef. I know I keep repeating it, but you can see it under the wave and up ahead of you as it’s turning hollow. It’s my natural human reaction: fear. Randy has been telling me how to fall in the barrel and over the reef, but . . . I believe that it’s something that one can’t just pick up and master in a couple days, unless you got some “Slater” in your blood.

    My next wave has another well defined shoulder. My paddling is feeling good. I’m turning, kicking, and scratching for the best take off spot as soon as I see the bump. My pop up is so early that I have ample time to set myself up before the section jacks. It looks like it’s turning shouldery, so I’m pumping. My pumps are so deep that I’m bounding into the sections, keeping up with the wave. It looks like it’s gonna be more of a spilling wave, so I do a Barney cut back and transition towards the shoulder again. Now the section’s over the reef, I lose track of the shoulder, and the whole wave is standing up. A vet would pull in and just tuck in close to the face for a chance of a tube ride. I . . . I succumb to my body’s “eject button” to get out of harms way and jump over the lip behind the wave. I tell myself that there’s no chance I could’ve made that.

    I’m tired. Being in the impact zone, the adrenaline from going down the line, all the pumping, and fear generated from the morning’s buffet has me drained. I tell Randy that I’m catching one in. I get my last wave right away. I go down the line a little, it goes hollow, I straighten up, and catch the white wash to shallow water. In the stagnant pools I take notice of little reef crabs that crawl down there. They use the reef plants as camouflage for their shells. I spot a baby eel slithering around. I whip out my camera and take a pic before it completely vanishes behind a rock. A Balinese guy from one of the warungs is waving his arms from the sand, saying, “Photo, photo!” I assume he wants to take a picture of me since he sees my camera out.

    I say, “Nah, no thank you.” He continues to be persistent, and then I realize that he has photos of me on some waves. I walk to his warung, sit in front of his Mac, and he starts to create a folder of all my wave pics this morning. What I see is sad. It’s not on every wave, but on at least three, I see shots of me pulling into the barrel and diving into the wave too early, while the section stayed hollow ahead of me. Sure, some were close outs, but some were definitely makeable if I only had the courage to go balls out. On one shot, I saw that I faded outside of the barrel, but I didn’t pull in. Fuck . . . it was RIGHT THERE! This is my first time having close up pictures of myself readily available upon getting out of the water. Back home, I’ve heard people talk shit about surfers that have photographers. One guy referred to it as a total Barney move. But as I’m looking at these pics, I see the mistakes that I’m making, right there, honest, true, and unbiased. In this case, the picture doesn’t lie. I ask the photographer to keep the file, as I’ll be back again.

    Back at the warung, Randy orders an orange juice, me, a Bali coffee. I’m watching guys trying to get barreled and going for it. Randy says, “See, if you know how to fall right, then you can be just like that guy. He’s just staying with the face, going for it. His mentality is just to get barreled.” The guy doesn’t get barreled, he’s getting pinched every time, but he’s only riding the wave for that one purpose. Randy gives me more pointers about my weak duckdive as well. Fuck . . . so many bad habits, and they’re hard to break or change in this critical surf. And at the same time, I look at the guy sitting across from us. There are scars on his back, pale white, moist, unable to heal because he’s in the water too much.

    So today was a wave buffet, but I didn’t leave the line up with that triumphant stoke. I feel as if I’ve hit a wall. Today the waves were made for barrels, and I didn’t take advantage of them. I know I said that getting barreled wasn’t important to me, but sometimes life throws signs or hints at you indicating which choices you should make. In this case, it seems like the ocean was telling me something, to just go for it. I think I have eleven days left. I can‘t promise success, all I can promise is a story to tell.

LOONCH!

Sunday Night Life:

Nappy Poopskies!

    Christine, our maid, didn’t come into work today, so we have to grab dinner elsewhere. Randy’s tired as hell, so he naps right when we get home. I cruise through Seminyak and hit the Bin Tang Market. I find that they’ve restocked their shelves with bean cakes. I buy four packages of them. I wonder where I should eat, and I stumble upon Café Seminyak. I look at their menu, they have pad thai, I love pad thai noodles. I don’t even notice how the hostess is standing there as she waits for me to lift my gaze. She asks if I want to eat there. I look at their dessert menu, something says “three scoops of ice cream,” so I’m in.

    I sit and people watch. It’s such an interesting place. Cab drivers slow and honk at every bule walking the streets. Aussies, Japanese, Javanese, everyone’s out and about. I’m surprised at how many women are vacationing amongst themselves without men. It actually seems that there are more women than men. The hostess comes back and asks where I’m from and what I’m doing in Bali. She seems nice enough. The conversation is short, and my food arrives. I’m sorry to say that the Balinese don’t quite have the Thai recipes down packed. The noodles are too soft, there’s too much sauce, and there must be a shortage of shrimp in this country because they are tiny. I order a Seminyak smoothie which is just okay. Damn, that’s what I get for coming to an obviously expensive restaurant. Randy told me to stick to the local ones. Café Seminyak is obviously westernized with western prices. I skip out on the dessert, pay my bill, and it comes out to a whopping 96,000 Rupiah which is just over ten bucks. It’s not much, but I could’ve gotten twice as much food at some other places. Now I feel bamboozled. I go to Bali Deli and order an ice cream coffee and banana split. It’s so damn good.

After the plane ticket, everything else is inexpensive.