How to get to Indonesia this year (2020).
groundswell wrote:Telos outside of covid is terribly crowded these days. and its a pain in the ass to get to all that effort and its fickle too, no thanks.
Sorry Groundswell but i have to call you out on this, I know you havent been to the Telos and seems you havent been back to Indo for years? (as you know we know each other on social media)
I don't want people to think it's uncrowded as yes it is much busier than what it use to be occasionally certain spots can now get quite busy if options are limited by a set condition, but other times when a nice swell is running and light winds you can surf with just your own crew or less than a dozen guys, but that said it's so unpredictable one day one wave can be average with 15-20 guys out next morning waves are better and there is only 5 guys out for hours, go figure.
A key difference is also the demographic of crowds, 15 guys in the water when 10 are over 50 in most cases isn't too bad unless they are from somewhere like Sydney or Gold coast with and frothing, but 15 guys in the water when 10 are grommets or in their 20s and decent surfers is hard work, even worse in areas that have decent local surfers.
Anyway sadly 90% of the areas of Indo are now the same and can get very busy at times, it sucks but it is what it is.
In regard to consistency and quality, yeah it's less consistent and lower quality than the Mentawais it's like the ugly sister and the best waves need a decent swell the best comparison for quality and consistency would be like comparing the Gold Coast (Mentawai's) to Sunshine Coast(Telos) or NSW far north coast to NSW north coast
No you're right i havent been to telos islands but my firends here have and said they wont be going back.
One surfs every day jakes is breaking and is no slouch. i Guess you would know though and having the criwd mostly over 50 would increase wave count too. i dont know i just wouldnt bother with any crowded waves in teh telose and either would my mate, Freddo who often features in my jakes point videos.
Last time i was in krui (2008)i got a lot of waves to myself or with a new friend, south of wai jambu id go there fore sure again. a mate of mine lives there for years at a time and consistanlty says it was uncrowded.
Mediri and ujung bocur etc all get crowded but my secrets still have barely a soul around .
needs the same conditions as mandiri but high tide.
One only problem is it needs high tides to barrell over a slab if reef exposed at lowtide and a north ne wind, small swell(2-4ft)..i wrote a tory for it in karungabaa magazine and still nobody has desccoerd it or surfed it according to my mate. he lives there for 1 year at a time on kitas i think, so knows all the spots abetwenn bekenkut and bengkulu. says still lots untalkedd about and quality.
I’d be keeping all that on the DL groundswell.
Dont worry Andy its a hard find and have to go of certain landmakrs to take turns off the main road, sometimes miss the turn off etc then go through a maze of local huts and houses with kids always asking for money so people wont leave their scooters there in case they get stolen.
Wont be discovered for a while yet i imagine. I feel like buying 4 ara of land and build a shack there in front of the wave. Lots of deadly snakes and wild boar there to scare away tourists.
Argh okay that makes sense if they are Jakes locals, they probably saw the better waves description/pics on some of the resorts website wave guides and expected to get those waves on and then just got average sized swells or bad winds that sent everyone to the more consistent waves that to a Jakes local would seem pretty soft and even the more consistent hollower ones to a Jakes local wouldn't be that challenging, it's more an area for your average or older surfer the type of surfer that would find Jakes out of their league.
The very high quality hollow waves they would have been wanting to catch after seeing the pics on the websites are pretty fickle a couple even only break properly a few days a year, although a lot of the very high quality heavier waves that a Jakes local would probably love when they do break are generally uncrowded often just the surf guides surfing them as they are generally out of the league of most guest who stay in the area.
Personally i think it kind of sucks how some resorts list all the spots then include photos from pretty much the best days ever and then make no indication to the consistency or lack off in the waves description it's very misleading, one website even list spots that havent even been known to have been surfed as are only kind of waves, waves that look good in pics but 2 seconds after the pic it's complete dry reef.
With waves descriptions and pics for the surf house, i undersell things if anything and be brutally honest and pics are from every day sessions, to me there would be nothing worse than people coming and being disappointed because you have over sold things.
BTW. I know the waves you are talking about in South Sumatra, ive got a full list and description of every possible little surfable bit of reef/sand for that coast, i got it a very long time ago from that USA wanker Andy that ended up getting deported.
Indo how's Andreas doing ...A few guests staying ?
@indo , I stayed at Andy’s place in 2006 , didn’t think he would last , the guy was definitely a loose cannon , doing shit stuff like buying beachfront land in the area then trying to block locals access to the beach. I think his wife’s uncle was a general or something, so he bragged, heard he got the boot after they squeezed what they could out of him , wasn’t liked by the other places you could stay and unfortunately I was stuck with him as the other places were full . Great coastline I was amazed at endless empty reefs , points , rivermouths , beachies . And as far as consistency went it didn’t get under 4ft much in the 6 weeks I was there.
He is going alright but only had one couple stay since reopening (non surfers to) few enquires from guys in Nias but i don't think they want to leave as there has only been about 20 westerners there so generally less than 10 in the water. (an expat friend was there 2 weeks ago hence how i know)
@Supafreak
He ended up becoming pretty much an alcoholic to which didn't help, ha ha you see that so much in Indonesia, guys move to Indo to surf and often run a accommodation business and years latter end up hardly surfing but drinking non stop.
@indo , yeah I never saw him in the surf . His wife seemed realy nice , bit of a odd couple .
His wife cheated on him in 2007 with the tourist bus driver on a mission to bander lampung to pick up guests from the airport. Aparently his wife didnt like the way he rooted (local indonesian told me) would treat her like a whore and he had an oversized painful dick.
He then got the shits with wai jambu locals, they threw him down a well broke his legs and he was a stuck there starving for a week. then got deported.
@indo - yep seen that too. Being at a resort can be a trap if ya like a drop. New guests every 10 days. First and last night always a party. Can be every a party night with some groups. Guy i knew that ran a resort in Indo ended up not even lookin at surf unless it was 4ft after a few years he'd had so much perfection. Then it became 6ft. Then 6-8ft....up to the point where he ended up drinking so much that he'd lost all his fitness and couldn't surf when it was that big anymore. I didn't even see him in the water last 2 trips i did.....
Andys ex wife now owns two surf camps at ujung bocur, even though she was the one who cheated.
I stayed in Krui with some mates in 2000 at the 2 storey hotel in town. There was no accom at Ujung Bocur back then but that snivelling cunt Andy was hanging around. We'd surf there nearly every day and after a few days that fuckwit started hassling us for not staying at 'his joint' in town. One morning we got up to surf and our gear which was downstairs had been tampered with overnight. Cupla slashed board bags and cut leggies.
We knew straight away it was that 'Andy' cunt but couldn't track him down. 3 days later I went to make a phone call at the Krui wartel and was over the moon to see Andy on the phone in one of the booths. Lets just say it didn't end well for him and me and the lads dined free on his dime for the next few days until he fucked off from the area for a while.
What a fucken gutless kook he was and Ive got great memories of surfing Ujung Bocur with just us and the very rare other traveler for 2 and a bit weeks. We'd set up on the point with a few locals for company and they'd go and get us food while we surfed all wrapped in banana leaves. Sure....only a B grade Indo wave but when it's just you and your mates every day and it's 3-6ft for the time you're there....happy days! Lovely local people and happy to get some coin off the bules who were fairly rare in those parts then.
I'll always remember the scared shitless look on that cunt's face in the phone booth when he looked up and saw me standing over him. Hung the phone up and started promising me the world cause he thought he was gunna get pounded. Hjs wife was a unit too.
Like most of Indo....sounds like it's a total shitshow now.
ringmaster wrote:I stayed in Krui with some mates in 2000 at the 2 storey hotel in town. There was no accom at Ujung Bocur back then
Like most of Indo....sounds like it's a total shitshow now.
Hotel Janitra? i stayed there too after an 18 hour hellride bustrip from jakarta. was only allowed one board on the bus, i had two surfboards and a bodyboard. The one i used the most was my mk2 jim banks fish so i chose that.
Anyway after that hellride and non stop smoking in the smokers room and mingling with lots of indonesians on the bus they dumped me off in krui and told me to walk south untill i see some lights.
It was soo dark and i thought id get robbed but i found the hotel and had to wake up the manager.
It was only 50 000rp a night there and had a few tv's lots of dvds, books and a double bed for me to stay in. it wouldnt be good for couples though, every movement i made had the floor squeeking etc
no masterbation in that place but otherwise a quality hotel for the price.
I then found out there were no ATM's in town so i borrowed the managers moterbike the next day and went to Liwa. thats from memory at least an hour and a half away so i went there and the ATM had run out of money, so had i... i met some locals in town and they gave me a feed and somewheree to sleep for the night when the ATM would get reloaded the next day. The indonesians even offered me their daughter to sleep with me! she was only 16 and seemed naughty i wasnt up for that i thought, these people want me to marry her so they can become rich off my money i thought.
Anyway got some cash, enough for 3 months stay at family losmen (where i made a "pay in advance" discount deal. Ujung bocur was good as soon as i rocked up. One local came up to me and wanted to swap my multipocketed cargo pants for his cheap ones.It took me a few hours to get the point wired and get to know the wave, very melow and easy to do no paddle takeoffs or highline drives down into a bowl. most of the crew seemed to only surf the first section and do lots of snaps and reos then pull off.
But on my fish it was so fast driving highlines you could race around closeout sections and then jam grab rail cutties or jam it into the pocket head dip sort of thing.
I got a bit bored of a wave that doesnt really barrel after a week so mostly surfed a few secrets that a mate and i found.
Only one other guy ever paddled out to one, the heaviest spot and first wave on his backhand gets driven into the reef and needed stitches...he was off to a thailand hospital for that.
We called it "better than bingin" as it was such a fun wave.. but go too far in the tube and my keels were dragging on the reef. the reef had huge holes and caverns etc it was nasty and thats where you have to paddle through to get out.
This spot was right under everyones noses and no one knew about it as it looks like a closeout, but if you wait for the south ones, indicated by the outside bombie they are completly makeable.
My avatar is a photo of the place on a 2-3ft day.
We surfed it up untill the 4ft range after that the end section would go too dry. Also smaller swells seemed to be more makeable.
one local went fishing there on a flat day and a king wave came and he drowned. Everyone paddled out but couldnt find him. He washed up on the beach a few days later, RIP.
Here are a few photos of the wave "better than bingin"
4-6 foot day
2-3ft day
local GT chasing fish
3-4ft day
We also found the other wave south of wai jambu and scored it perfect the very next day after finding it (onshore with devil SW winds. Didnt take any photos of it though. But were very lucky such a big high tide north winds and small 3-5ft swell was hitting the magnets a day after finding the wave..At first i thought those needed conditions would make it fickle but its actually consistanta and a swell magnet.
But in saying it doesnt barrel at ujung bocur, i saw some cyclone swell footage probably from SE direction (over Christmas time i think) and it was tubing most of the way. Most people say its best in SW swells but that cyclone swell was better than any day i saw it and i spent a total of close to 5 months there.
It can be cheaper there to live than anywhere on earth. You can rent a house for $50 a month longterm or short term stay with a local and maybe get it for $30-$50 a month...But the surf camps dont want anyone to know that.
If you're not into luxury you can do it super cheap..just watch out for bed bugs and mosquitos. Also apparently the satay chicken guy gets people sick sometimes with salmonella.
I ate there almost every day though,also at the mie or nasi goreng place late at night, only got sick from eating a lobster that had stayed in the sun too long causing parasites in my stomach.
Groundswell, Jim Banks mk2 fish is a great board, isn't it?
Had so many memorable surfs on it. Now a bit lumpy and repaired more times than I care to remember, but still serviceable.
arcadia wrote:Groundswell, Jim Banks mk2 fish is a great board, isn't it?
Had so many memorable surfs on it. Now a bit lumpy and repaired more times than I care to remember, but still serviceable.
Yeah very good boards, i dont think the mk5's are as good as the swallow isnt as wide and they dont come in glass ins any more.
Enjoyed the read @Groundswell, thanks for sharing
amb wrote:Enjoyed the read @Groundswell, thanks for sharing
+ 1
thanks, no worries. i wish i was there now, 2'C at sunrise here this morning. I miss the tropics every winter.
Also that spot in the far south is troubled by backwash from the steep sandy shoreline, a lot of swell makes the sand steep and backwashy so i dont think a lot of people will not bother with it.Even wai jambu is uncrowded most of the time. ive seen it barrel the whole way from outside to the end and no one out.
sketchy wave though especially at 6ft plus. cleanup sets come from no where with no indicaters and bottom out like teahopoo. At size its more scary than shark island.
Some nice peaky Ulu and a Covid update from Slim
https://www.baliwaves.com/2021/06/bali-surf-weather-report-uluwatu-hard-...
Bali reopening delayed https://coconuts.co/bali/news/balis-international-tourism-reopening-all-...
Not sure if this is just a temporary measure.
But apparently it was announced today domestically in Indo you will now need at least your first vaccination to travel on planes, trains, buses, ferries.
yep, just for the emergency period atm indod, which is just over 2 weeks, plenty of knowledgable people suggesting it might get extended. the whole emergency lockdown thingy is sounding a bit more serious this time
plenty of crew in transit and quarrantine wondering if they're gonna get stuck and/or even make it to bali... or out...
garuda offering vaccines at the airport. which sounds simple enough, but could be kinda risky for a domestic flight connecting with long haul international...
Argh okay makes sense.
Yeah saw that vaccines at the airport, not really sure if vaccines and flights that day are such a great combo, especially if you aren't feeling 100% and you are going from A/C to sticking hot Indo and back again.
Indo you mean like deep bone thromosis?
groundswell you mean like deep vein thrombosis?
or am I missing the humour somewhere?
but yeh, there could be that, especially with AZ, there's some advice to avoiding that vax if there's a family history...
but agree with indo in a general sense, air-con, temp. variations, and flying and stuff not ideal straight after having a vax... as I said, especially not with connecting flights etc...
and as tbb's research shows, you are probably more vulnerable straight after having the vax...
and the vax takes 14 days to be effective...
seems purely a box ticking exercise, as so many things do with this virus and it's remedies... and not just in indo!
fwiw, I got pretty crook after having vaccine, would have been a nightmare if you had a full day of travel in that situation
sypkan yeah thats it deep bone thrombosis..been making a lot of spelling errors lately.
check this shit out
bali getting serious about russian organised crime
https://m.facebook.com/frisini/posts/pcb.10159212410515325/?photo_id=101...
...and so it appears I'm not just paranoid...
and a russiaphobe...
Anyone going to Indonesia this year make sure you have plenty of back up cash . I was just on the phone to a mate who lives in Bali and was semi retired . He was doing 4-5 shutdowns a year to top up $ . Hasn’t worked now for over 2 years and funds are getting low . He has had both AZ shots and was booked on Garuda to fly to perth in July but got canceled, then they canceled his September then December flights. He’s now trying for January with both Garuda and Qantas. Also trying to access his super, which would carry him through to January.
Sounds good Gra
These are the positive cases for Bali 20/7 - 837 plus 25 deaths.
whole of indonesia 19/7- 34,257
127,500 total tested for all indonesia with 26.9% positive.
how accurate ? who knows but probably understated.
Hospitals and medical services appear to be at max capacity and struggling ( should you need them).
If you find a way to get there whatever you thought you need in ready cash quadruple it , a real fat credit card may be very useful plus best insurance you can get too as more mundane situations like getting smashed on reef or road accident requiring Medivac may be quite interesting under the present conditions as well.
I also read on some other thread yesterday in regards to a surfer who stated that it cost him an extra USD $1000 for visa and PCR/Covid tests and the 5 or eight day mandatory quarantine.
To get great information on what is going on over there join this face book group but keep it clean and friendly
Bali Covid-19 Update
People who are that desperate may wish to consider emigrating to EU or USA as they seem to have no issues getting in or out ( no idea how when you look at the Indo restrictions....visas must be flying out the door ! )
My risk assessment radar is stuck bleeping on pass for forseeable future , just how it is.
that von rupp fella can sure surf...
but geez he seems a total wanker...
a total self obsessed, entitled wanker...
Totally. Literally films himself breaking Covid regulations in Jakarta and consistently speaks of Covid being a bit of a blessing as tourists get to enjoy empty beaches. Deserves to be deported and blacklisted.
first time I've ever seen him
I was thinking total wanker by the board preparing stsge...
then he really took it next level
Just watched that Von Froth clip.
Love him or hate him, the bloke aint no dummy.
Confident, engaging, speaks well, good looking rooster and rips in massive or small surf.
All stickered up with some big names and probably making great coin to do what he loves.
Anyone who reckons they wouldn't like to walk in his shoes for a couple of weeks is probably lying.
*and he's in Indo and we're not.
you can be all that and still be a wanker...
For sure mate! I agree.
But the bloke seems to be ' living the dream' even in these COVOID times.
Lucky bastard whichever way you look at it.
Rove beetles do not bite or sting but their blood contains a strong toxin called pederin that can cause skin and eye irritations. If you crush the beetle the toxin is released and absorbed by your skin. The beetle can be crushed if you swat it like a fly or mosquito or if it collides with you at speed (such as bare skin on a motorbike) and can cause conjunctivitis, severe dermatitis (rash) and serious skin irritation. Initial symptoms include reddening of the skin, and a 'burning' sensation. This is followed by painful irritation and itching, with extensive pustules and blistering of the skin after 4 days. The affected areas remain irritated, blistered and sore for 10 days. Toxin on the hands, or exposure near body joints, can spread toxin to other areas of the body and to others. If a rove beetle is accidentally crushed against the skin, immediately wash the affected area with soap and water. The toxin slowly penetrates the skin. Washing shortly after exposure will remove much of the toxin before it has time to harm the skin.
Well nic seems to think he was "attacked" by the beetle! Haha.
Not as good as previous vids of his, but Nate Behl still goes alright:
Swellnetters,
There must be some way to get to Indonesia this year? Can you jump on a boat from Darwin? Can you fly there on the pretense of something other than surfing? Gotta be something...