After breakfast I load my 8’0″ surfboard onto the side of the moped I have hired and then wobble and bump down the awful road towards Grupuk. Thankfully without puncturing any more tyres.
I hire a boat there to take me out to the break, but am then staggered and a bit put out when we arrive and the skipper produces a board out of thin air leaps over the side and then goes surfing. No wonder he is so happy in this picture, I am paying him to go surfing!
We have driven his boat across the bay and joined the mob loitering by the peak of this right hand reef break.
The first thing that happens to me is that I nearly lose my board shorts going through a wave, when the water washes them down my legs because I haven’t tied them up properly, Schoolboy error!
I paddled straight up to the peak once I am sure of maintaining my clothed status and wait for the sets to come through to see what is on offer.
It was about shoulder high, and maybe a bit more on the sets which certainly felt chunky. They usually cleaned out the line up behind me, which was helpful because there were far too many trying to catch this wave. Sadly that meant that almost every time I snagged one my ride would be ruined by any number of people dropping into my fun.
One guy even surfed the whole way in front of me with me screaming at him to get out of the way, with the result only being a smile and a worthless apology at the end.
I sat as usual as far out as I thought the wave would break but got a bit of a shock with two other guys when a large grey fish started splashing close to us in the water. I can’t say for certain that it was a shark but it was at least as big as a surf board and there was an ominous shadow just under the water for five minutes!
As a consequence I didn’t stay in long after the one wave I caught without anybody dropping in. This is a groovy shot of that.
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