On The Pulse

It’s the end of September, and my working season is over and after few winters spent in the Canary Islands, I decided to take a trip to Indo.

- Davide Codotto

I had no fixed plan about how long I’d stay on the island, but sub-conciously was most likely thinking I’d stay at least until I’d been able to surf those world class points when they were properly doing their thing. Everyone knows what the transfer from Europe to Indonesia feels like – despite taking mere hours to get to the southern hemisphere, it’s still long enough to almost make you forget why you’re going all that way. When I stepped out of the airport at Denpasar and into the late Bali winter I was struck by how different things felt compared to my last trip here, two years ago in February. Right now, the dry season was still dominating and the deep greens I remembered were replaced with scorched dry beiges. I’d soon find out too that the water was a fresh 22 degrees, down 8 degrees from the 30 degrees I was used to. But dry season of course also meant that Uluwatu was still pumping! After a six month layup I was feeling a bit rusty, and after a few schoolings was starting to feel like a victim of a brutal KO in the octagon rather than a participant on a surf trip. Fortunatley, Bali is blessed with almost as many massage centres as it has temples so treatment for recovery was available, fast, and cheap. I soon settled into a steady routine. Wake up around 6am, breakfast, then surf check. After the first surf I’d have lunch at the warung then hang around till the sundowner session. Once back on land shower, and then dinner with friends, usually at an Italian restaurant. With a modest budget of around 800 euros a month to cover accommo, scooter hire, Italian food etc... I decided to kill the winter by surfing through the wet season too. It probably worked out cheaper than having the heating on at home. As the weeks passed I felt the surf-rust being buffed away and my skills getting smooth.