IS IT LUCK OR JUST A CALCULATED RISK?

Australia’s Jason Polakow, who has twice won the PWA Wave Sailing World Championship and is one of the world’s finest surfers, gives a highly personal account of his most recent surfing projects in Bali and Tahiti. In this travel report, he continues to talk about his extraordinary trip to Bali.

"Our early afternoon arrival at the airport meant that we had just enough time to check out the location where we had focused most of our research: Uluwatu. A world-class surfing wave with numerous barrel sections and vertical walls to throw huge cutbacks and airs. A basic description of Uluwatu would be that it’s like a huge ball sack that faces about 300 degrees of ocean, and this, combined with the myriad bluffs and coves and bays, means there’s usually a swell/wind combo. Pathways that look more like tunnels have been etched through the cliff rocks that eventually weave down to the shoreline.

We had heard stories of wind on the upper part of the Uluwatu reef. Super glassy waves that break too fast for surfers and peel down the reef, eventually connecting up with the main break. It was time to make these stories our own! As the coastline bent in and out, soaring majestic temples stuck out on the cliff’s top faces. One such structure is the Uluwatu Temple, which perches high on a needle of rock at the southwest extremity of Uluwatu. The structure is one of the region’s main temples where Indonesians come to pray.

As for the rest of the area, there are more people living in this mountainous bluff region than meets the eye, and during certain times of prayer or festival, thousands can seem to appear out of thin air.

Upon my first look at the Uluwatu break, I was immediately worried about how the wind would funnel down the sheer cliffs and remain constant as it hit the water line. The surf had not yet arrived and I could not really make out where the outside reef was. Photography was also going to be a major problem. The cliff tops made it difficult to get the correct angle and there was no real channel for a photographer and ski to sit. It wouldn’t have been a problem for us to sit and take shots in the impact zone but to convince a photographer with 20,000 dollars of camera equipment to do so was quite another, especially when he had a newly appointed Indonesian driver behind the wheel. I knew my task was going to be difficult and the next time I would see Uluwatu would be from the water.

From that moment, things just went from bad to worse. The high pressure had stopped the low, and the swell that was meant to hit within 24 hours had now been delayed for two days. The “old girl” had obviously wanted to teach us one last lesson. Essentially, our three days of 10 foot plus had turned into only one good day. Predicting the weather is like playing a game of golf. You never fuckin’ get it right!

Doubts that the swell would ever arrive were quickly answered by a loud pounding on the outside reef at around 11:30 pm. Morning saw some of the shoreline washed away, indicating that it was good size. Dog had taken the ski from the hotel and was on his way to meet pick me at another famous surf break called Pedang, which is just about the closest beach access to Uluwatu. With two surfboards, one sailboard, two masts, two sails and a boom, the ski was definitely overwhelmed with equipment. We looked more like a Jacques Cousteau expedition than a couple of surfers!

Rounding the point, we could see that Uluwatu was pumping. Nobody was out at the main break. It was big but not super-clean, but further up the reef it was reeling off super fast. I could see these glassy barrels heading towards me.

The current at Uluwatu was so strong it was unbelievable. We tried to anchor the windsurf equipment on the outside by tying the anchor line to the foot strap. With the combination of the sets and current, the entire windsurf equipment would disappear underwater for 30 seconds and then pop up again 50 yards away from where we were. I swear, at one stage I felt like we were in the movie Dumb & Dumber. We tried to tie the front of the ski to the anchor line and almost lost the entire vessel underwater. Windsurfing equipment and surfboards floated away, hats and sunscreen sank, and a knot at the front of the ski developed that even the best Boy Scout would have had a problem undoing. I have been up to “Jaws” so many times and had no problems. I guess it was some kind of voodoo cure that had been put on us by the weather gods.

It seemed that the only solution was to take the windsurf equipment to the beach and then tow surf until the breeze started kicking in."

In the third part of the Bali Travel Report we find out about the things that caused Jason headaches and why he’s grateful to "Dog" for the grand finale.