June 2007 Issue
Pavones
6 DEGREES North
I guess my daughter Sarah’s right (she usually is). She's been insisting for awhile now that I get some kind of living trust or Will or something, especially if I’m gonna be traveling as much as I have been. It sunk in last week, half way into a four hour bus ride from San Jose, Costa Rica, to a small town south named San Isidro General. Usually my wife Debi and I rent a car to cruise around Costa Rica, but this time our friends that live in San Isidro offered to drive, so we decided to bus it to their place.
Traveling for surf is an inherently dangerous business, and using public transport i.e, buses and ferries, usually increases that risk substantially. The bus driver was passing eight cars at once, going down very steep mountain roads, with cliffs on each side. No one really seemed to notice, especially the 62 year old Tico man who'd been talking my ear off since he figured out I understand Spanish. By the time we got to San Isidro, I knew his life story, and he knew mine.
Whenever I’m in Costa Rica, heading south, I stop to visit The McConnells on the way down. Carol and her two children, Casey and Terri, are ex Santa Barbara residents. Carol’s husband Robbie was a really good friend, who left us all way to early in a tragic accident at S.B. harbor. Carol and the kids started a new life down in Costa Rica shortly after, and for the last 15 years they’ve called Costa Rica home.
The house they live in is a dream. Surrounded by 100% Costa Rican jungle, it sits on the banks of a good size river. The soothing sounds quickly help wash away the stress and tension from two days of traveling. It's easy to gather your thoughts and prioritize tasks at hand, but usually after a day or so of just vegging out and drinking tons of good strong coffee, I get a little antsy and have to make a beeline for the beach.
Our trip was blessed from the get go. I booked the tickets using air miles nine months ago. Then, a week before we were to leave, I checked all the swell forecasts, and low and behold there was swell coming. How’s that? Not just some piddly, weak, swell but a real live deep-water six foot southern hemi groundswell. All three forecasters were in agreement, it was gonna be 6-8 ft the entire 10 days of our trip. Yippee!
As we drove down the canyon from Carol’s, towards the beach at Dominical, I strained my eyes to see the surf. We finally reached the coast and I could see the swell--solid and consistent. Dominical beachbreak was closed out and whomping as usual, so we headed the car south, and started our four hour drive to Pavones.
I’ve been out to "the end of the road" three times now. Pavones is an unreal wave, that very well may be the longest left in the world. I've ridden G-land, Ulu, Raglan, Asu, and Cloudbreak, and can truthfully say the lefts I’ve gotten at Povones are way longer than any of those spots. Three or four long waves in the midday sun, and you're done.
Going on some inside info, we decided not to take ferry across the Rio Clara. There hasn’t been much rain and rumor is that the ferry only goes at high tide, and only takes one car at a time. We didn't want to risk an hour wait in the equatorial heat, so we opted for the slightly longer drive to the Panamanian border, than west out to Punta Barrica.
When we got there, there was plenty of swell running. I tried to talk the girls into just dumpin' me off at the beach, so they could go find a place to stay and check in and stuff, but they weren't buyin it.
We cruised down the "Cabinas de Ponderosa" to see if there were any rooms. The place is owned by a really nice couple, Marshall and Angela who have been there since day one. I stayed a couple a times before and have always had a good time. The rooms have A.C., the food is great and available all day, and they have a big rec room with ping pong, DVD, TV, and music. There’s a fridge stocked with cold beer, water and sodas, and they operate on the honor system, where you mark down how much you consume. It’s a great place to stay for the younger crowd, who like to stay up a little later and have a couple of beers before hitting the sack. You can walk to the point from there, but you wouldn’t want to do it more than once or twice a day. It’s hot--you're only six degrees north of equator there, and at 60 nautical miles a degree, that’s a mere 360 miles.
Because it was Easter week, Marsh had nothing for us, so we headed down the road and up a hill to "Casa Siempre Domingo" (always Sunday). Owned by a couple with one child, Gregorio and Heidi keep a really clean ship at their bed and breakfast on the hill over looks Pavones. Heidi doesn’t cook lunch or dinner, but every morning you wake up to the smell of fresh brewed coffee, bacon and eggs of your choice, and a large plate of local fruits and juices. It’s a great way to start another very long day of three hour surf sessions mixed with intermittent lounging on the towel with wifey in the shade.
Latin Americans are really big on Easter-- it’s mass exodus from the cities to the beach Easter week--and they don’t pack light either. You can see them driving, couch from home tied to the roof. T.V. and generator in the trunk. They plop their bed down in the sand, set up a kitchen for mama and commence having a good time. The kids love it. Luckily not many of them surf…
After three days of six hour sessions in the water, the nubs on the bottom of my ribs were sore and red. The insides of my thighs were rubbed raw from the wax on my rails, and I couldn't hear a ring out of my right ear. The whole world sounded like an echo chamber, but ya know what? I’m not complaining. Anyway, there’s no sympathy for surf related injuries. Every married surfer knows that... Late in the day on Thursday, I dragged my self out for another session. No one was around, Just me and two guys off the top, with 10 foot faces grinding around the point. One set had 15 plus waves. Pavones is the kind of place where when you see a set coming your better off just putting your head down and paddling as hard as you can out and over. The next wave is always way out there and down the line.
I glanced around to check out who was around me. No one….just one chick from Florida with a pink surf hat 50 yards down the line. Just what the doctor ordered. Finally, just me and the waves. No pesky group of 20-something year old pro surfer wannabes trying to paddle up my back or contesting my position. And after one of the worst winters ever recorded back home, it felt really, really good. My next wave was probably the longest left I’ve ever ridden, close to a quarter mile of top pumping and backside driving at full speed. Hot offshores were blowing in my face and grooming the waves as well. The wave stretches in front like an unpainted canvas, waiting for me.
That night the surf was really loud. I could barely sleep. I was overly tired and sunburnt from head to toe. With each cracking lip came a little squirt of adrenalin. In the dawns early light, I could see the whole GolfoDulce stacked up with solid swell. I was too amped to eat. I guzzled down a bunch of water, left the girls at home and headed down. It was cranking. I tried to pace my self. I waited for a lull but half way out, a 17-wave set came. I took 'em all right on the head. By the time I got out I was already exhausted.
It was 7:30 am and 95 degrees in the sun. The water was like 84. I was fading fast and after three or four of the best waves I’d had in sometime, I was done. Maybe overdone. But I knew that it was 'back to business as usual' in the states, so I had to get back on the treadmill and paddle until my arms couldn't paddle anymore. I was physically ruined, but mentally at ease.
After 40 years of chasing surf around the world, I’m still amazed on how content I feel, and how right everything in the world is after five days of good surf.
After a couple a days back in Cali at work, I knocked off early and paddled out at Rincon for a surf. It was freezing cold, the water was so brown I couldn't see the Al Merrick logo on my deck, and the same little kid back paddled me two times for what amounted to muddy three foot mushy whitecaps. My Jacuzzi was calling.
With a tall Guinness in hand I gloated to myself about last week's incredible surf and also try to muster up the strength for the next eight weeks of work. Then, it’s off to Mainland Mex. The area between Pascuales and Ixtapa is holding. It’s like the Big Sur of Mexico, and after a really good trip there last year with Hog and Joel, I promised myself to go back with my wife to do some exploring. It’s called the Bandito Coast (for good reason) and probably not the best place to travel alone with your wife. Kinda dangerous.
Maybe I’ll just try to stay off the buses...
Late,
Scar
Posted June 2007 Blue Edge Magazine. All rights reserved.
Haida Gwaii
Hours of Darkness
Trailing the Raven in Haida Gwaii
Words and Photos by Michael Kew
“Better put your jackets on,” the stewardess warned. “It’s a bit breezy out there.”
Tyler Smith, Raph Bruhwiler, Josh Mulcoy, Chris Burkard, and I stepped through the Dash 8’s door and were nearly blown off the airplane stairs. The wind was sharp, the air freezing. Black storm clouds loomed. Alaska lay within sight. Behind us were jagged, snow-covered mountains, and ahead lay shallow Hecate Strait, one of the world’s most feared waterfetches, just wicked today, smeared white by the southeasterly gale.
“At least it’s offshore somewhere!” someone yelled over the din.
Of course, this was expected. Daily, for months leading up to our departure, I’d monitored Haida Gwaii’s weather online, and the forecasts were repetitive, like the one posted the day of our arrival:
Storm warning continued. Wind warning in effect.
Tonight..Rain. Amount 20 mm. Wind southeast 50 to 70 km/h increasing to 70 to 100 overnight. Low plus 5.
Thursday..Rain. Amount 20 mm. Wind southeast 70 to 100 km/h becoming south 40 to 60 in the afternoon. High 8.
Thursday night..Rain. Amount 10 to 15 mm. Wind southeast 50 to 80 km/h. Low 8.
Friday..Rain. Wind southeast 50 to 70 km/h increasing to 70 to 100 then becoming south 30 late this afternoon. High 10.
On the bus into town, once he learned that Smith was a Maverick’s fiend, a white fisherman with a redneck
drawl promised us that there was a giant wave “just like Maverick’s” that broke out in front of a fishing lodge his friend worked for, out on the west coast. “It breaks best when the winds are about 70 knots onshore,” the man said. “Just comes up out of nowhere and boom, this huge roller, taller’n a cedar totem pole.”
“Which way does it break?” Smith asked, eyebrows raised. “Left or right?”
“Oh, just straight in, right toward shore.”
We were mocked by passersby outside our hotel; one woman thought we’d brought oversized snowboards. Three burly loggers in the café next door thought we were hippie tree-planters from Vancouver. Tree-planters are not particularly liked on Haida Gwaii, despite the island’s forests being logged at twice the rate that is considered sustainable.
“In the past 50 years,” says the Haida Nation homepage, “industrial logging has transformed the landscape of Haida Gwaii from diverse old forest to young, even-aged stands of one or two species. The major river systems that once provided Haida villages with salmon; large cedars for longhouses and monumental art; and, plants for food, medicines, fiber and animal habitat have been eradicated by logging without consideration for these values.”
Still, we would not be digging holes for cedar saplings.
“You guys are here to go surfing?” the loggers asked, amused at our quest. “Good luck!”
Down at the quaint harbor, another local—a Haida—said we were out of our minds, that if we wanted to go surfing, we needed to go somewhere like California or Hawai’i. He suggested that we start drinking instead, joining him at a nearby cocktail lounge, where there would be “guaranteed fights.”
Reputedly the Haida were fierce, physically large, historically feared by all other Indians in the northwest. Every Haida we met was extremely friendly, but, back in the day, the kin of these folks would routinely sail across the Hecate Strait in cedar canoes to terrorize mainland tribes, acquire slaves and provisions, and return to Haida Gwaii with the proud gaze of dominance.
“The Haida, and only the Haida, were immune from attack,” Christie Harris wrote in Raven’s Cry. “In consequence, the pride of the Haida shaded even that of their mighty neighbors [the Tsimshian and Tlingit]. They were lords of the coast, the aristocrats of their world.”
While the offer of drinking and fighting proved nearly irresistible, we declined and repaired to a Chinese restaurant where we checked the online forecast and brainstormed between forkloads of MSG. West coast buoys reported a nine-meter swell. Otherwise, things looked grim.
“It might be stormy like this the whole time,” Mulcoy said.
“Could get worse,” Bruhwiler said.
“The west coast is going mental right now,” Smith said.
“Only if it’s blowing 70 knots onshore,” I said.
Along Haida Gwaii’s desolate and savage west side, the highest-energy coastline in North America, it’s not a matter of getting swell—aside from finding a surfable spot, it’s a matter of getting to that swell. There are no roads, no harbors, no hiking trails, nothing but deep, black fjords, vertical cliffs, impassable alpine ridges of rock and snow, and ancient forests averaging 20 feet of rain annually, pelted by furious winds and enormous seas. The island’s refined, pointbreak-rich east coast is one big tease, receiving basically no swell, ever.
“I’ll say that the east, or leeward, side…is the biggest waste of prime surf geography I have ever seen,” Ben Marcus wrote when he visited the island in the late 1990s. And so, perhaps in desperation late one woolly afternoon, Smith braved 50-knot onshores and horizontal rain to surf rocky waist-high wind slop in 42-degree water at a spot that could be world-class. Considering the huge swell hitting the west coast at that very moment, if Smith could’ve flipped the island, turning east coast to west, he would have been surfing a gargantuan Malibu. Alas, in geographical terms, it is not meant to be.
The west coast’s only car-accessible zone required a careful three-hour (each way) negotiation of a snowbound, signless logging road with many forks in it; eventually we reached the inlet, though sheltered it was. There we found a couple of pebbly beachbreaks, a flawless right point, and an enticing left rivermouth, but despite epic scenery and exposure to open ocean, these “spots” were flat while the truly exposed coast outside was bombing left and right. Smith’s binoculars confirmed this. “We need jet skis!” came the consensus.
But there are few jet skis in Haida Gwaii. Renting one was impossible. Even if we had our own, trailering it out atop that road would likely bang the thing to bits; having nowhere to launch it was another problem. Bruhwiler had considered bringing his two skis on the ferry from Port Hardy, but that would’ve been bloody expensive.
For all the world’s surfers, Haida Gwaii is a cruel and unusual place. We had a good crew for the task: Vancouver Island’s Raphael Bruhwiler really needs no introduction, a gritty lifelong soldier of the Pacific Northwest; Santa Cruz’s Tyler Smith, a Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Award finalist, top-placing Maverick’s competitor and Ghost Tree charger, is fearless; fellow Westsider Josh Mulcoy is a core coldwater freak, actively seeking juice along some of the globe’s harshest coasts—Norway, Alaska, Iceland, Oregon. “Still,” Mulcoy said, “Haida Gwaii is definitely the coldest place I’ve ever been.”
Cold was not an issue when it came to accessing the west coast. One day Raph and I lunched on Reubens and coffee in the Purple Onion Deli; soon Mulcoy arrived and the conversation returned to boats. A cute brunette named Lindsey overheard our plight; she handed me a scrap of paper containing the phone number of her friend, a local fishing-charter guy who just might be stoked to take us out yonder for a look-see.
“He’s got a killer, brand-spankin’-new Boston Whaler,” Lindsey said. “He just christened it the other day. Super fun guy, knows where to go out there—he works for the Coast Guard. Give him a call.”
A lifetime of cigarettes bespoke Chumma’s even, disc-jockey-modulated voice. It suggested that he knew his stuff, and I could tell he was keen for a real bluewater chance to test his new vessel before salmon season started.
“If it’s big water you’re after,” Chumma said, “the west is the place. I’ve spent my whole life trying to avoid the damn breakers out there.”
We arranged to meet Thursday at the dock at 5:30 a.m. Today was Monday—Thursday seemed an awfully long way off considering the severe but mesmerizing weather we were having. Locals said it would ease. The myth was, if you don’t like the weather, wait 10 minutes. Unfortunately we had to wait much longer than that.
Indeed, mythology saturates Northwest Indian culture, and true to universal theme, supernatural entities are created to explain the unknowable, interpreted through generations via intricate art, dance, and detailed verbology. For the Haida, the most prominent figure of myth and legend is the jet-black raven, something we saw every day. Technically the raven is a hawk-sized songbird, a skilled predator and scavenger, never short on food or wit, and, mythologically, the raven is a transformer, able to become anything, anytime, anywhere. “As a transformer he is responsible for the present order of the universe,” Martine Reid wrote in The Children of the Raven. “He discovers mankind, acquires and controls food, brings the light into the world.”
Episodes of raven myth are illustrated on totem poles throughout Haida Gwaii, and the one we found of most interest, considering the violent weather we faced, was how the raven discovered a man who possessed a small box containing a ball of light, which was all the light in the universe. The raven, cunning as he was, managed to steal the ball and use it to illuminate the entire world, previously an “inky, pitchy, all-consuming dark, blacker than a thousand stormy winter midnights, blacker than anything anywhere has been since,” Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst wrote in The Raven Steals the Light. “The world was at once transformed. Mountains and valleys were starkly silhouetted, the river sparkled with broken reflections, and everywhere life began to stir. The Raven flew on, rejoicing in his wonderful new possession, admiring the effect it had on the world below, revelling in the experience of being able to see where he was going, instead of flying blind and hoping for the best.”
Halfway into the trip, staring out at clouds and rain and distant snowcaps, listening to the wind shriek past the hotel windows, we could almost—almost—relate. We’d found fun albeit gutless waves at one rivermouth, but really, until then, searching for waves, we’d driven an average of 150 miles a day, very slowly, with no music, in a rented four-wheel-drive truck, progressively coating the cab’s floor with food wrappers and empty water bottles. Five of us in the truck for hour upon hour, fidgeting and farting and letting the comedy flow freely. “Let’s see what’s down that road” became a common utterance, the driver (me) repeatedly and abruptly veering the truck off the main road and down sketchy singletracks in dense rain forest in the middle of nowhere, usually leading to an impassable hole or horizontal tree, or to another flat beachbreak, or to the cabin of a Haida family or hippie outcast who didn’t want us there.
That night, crew morale threatened to plunge irreversibly. “We need something,” Burkard said, glumly clicking through the Internet on his laptop. “It can’t stay like this forever, can it?”
“We’re definitely due for a change,” I said.
“Check the forecast,” Mulcoy said.
And it had changed—drastically:
Wednesday..A mix of sun and cloud. Low 7. High 11.
Thursday..A mix of sun and cloud with 30 percent chance of showers.
Low plus 5. High 12.
Friday..A mix of sun and cloud. Low 6. High 13.
We looked at each other. “High of 13? A mix of clouds and sun?”
Buoyweather.com confirmed a swing in swell angle, from southwest to west, optimum for both the entire west coast and a certain beachbreak up north. Our luck had risen.
Since hiring Chumma’s boat for the next day was unlikely, we settled for the beachbreak, which turned out to be an impressive score.
Moss Landing or Hossegor—take your pick. That was what we found, only minus the crowds and traffic and topless girls, and the water was much colder, the driftwood much bigger. Aside from a brief shower, the sun shone warmly all day and the offshore wind puffed gently, grooming the consistent and overhead lines, which, based on their orderliness, had come from afar. Only problem were the extraordinary tides, which in Haida Gwaii range 25 feet. So one sandbar that was good for 45 minutes would send us down the beach to sample another bar for maybe 30 minutes, then another, and another, and so forth.
For lunch in total solitude, we lounged in the dunes and roasted sausages over a driftwood fire, and the sweet scent of woodsmoke in the lineup that golden afternoon accented what had actually been a very good day, better than most in terms of any surf trip any of us had ever been on.
“Weather-wise,” said Smith upon sunset, “we probably just got the nicest day of the year. We got sunburned in a place where that normally doesn’t happen.”
And then it was Thursday. Chumma and deckhand Gary finished prepping the Whaler as we pulled onto the wooden dock an hour before first light, the scene faintly aglow under the orange harbor lights. As luck would have it, our hours of darkness—figuratively and literally—were about to end for good. Surfing beneath sun for an entire day at an empty, hollow beachbreak proved prescient for the second half of our trip—from now until departure, we would bid farewell to the darkness, dissolved by the raven, perhaps, and quickly forgotten.
On the last day, waiting for our airport taxi, a woman in a coffee shop said, “From the looks of your tans, you’re definitely not from around here.” Actually, we weren’t quite sure where we were, I told her, but we weren’t ready to leave it behind.
“I know what you mean,” the woman said, turning her face up toward the midday sun, smiling and squinting into the warmth.
In his book Haida Gwaii, Ian Gill wrote that there is “nowhere more beguiling, more hypnotic, more intoxicating and infuriating and enigmatic, more ineffable” than where we found waves, and, fittingly, nothing could better describe our path and our eventual taste—our feast—of it on Haida Gwaii, a.k.a. Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaii to native elders, these “islands of the people” where climatic traits are not mythical, the rain perpetual, the darkness vast. Yet Haida Gwaii is no site of monotony. Nothing remains the same for long.
Posted June 2007 Blue Edge Magazine. All rights reserved.
Bali: On a Road Less Traveled
Bali: On a Road Less Traveled
By David Pu’u
It has been said many times by writers and travelers: “Bali is an amazing, magical experience.” I had heard that from Aussie traveler and surfer Jim Banks who had been there thirty years prior, exploring the surf potential: “Mate you HAVE to go there” was his principal direction. Being a little slow, it only took me those 
thirty years.
I have found that the Gods of Bali dictate the tempo and timbre of the voice, heartbeat and siren song that drew a long history of transients into the island country from the ancient Chinese to present day Euro tourists, Japanese, a dwindling number of Aussies and now only occasional Americans. A world in turmoil has thrown Bali on the do not call list for international tourism. The US consulate had warnings up as we had left, about radical terrorism threats in Bali and Java. Asking around, I had decided to come anyway. It was a relief to see who and what actually controlled this part of the world. It definitely was not Al Quaida, as I was to learn in passing. It was a people who embraced me and taught me about the dance with the Gods of their land.
A case in point would be Petulu. The village we stayed in. In the sixties a clash with government troops had caused the entire village to be slaughtered. Genocide as our driver Gusti had described it. An even more horrible concept than a Western mind could accommodate when one experiences the closeness of the Balinese family unit. The silent homes of the vanquished lay dormant, waiting seemingly, he said. But for what? A couple seasons later something odd occurred. White herons descended into the trees above the village, a huge number of them. The Balinese believe. It was said to be the incarnation of their belief and proof by their Gods: the slaughtered innocent returned in the guise of those white herons. They are there to this day. I was dumbfounded when I saw that they would return at sunset each night to roost overhead. But that is “The Real Bali”: a land that urges one to believe.
Then there is the smile. Yes, a miraculous thing when one hails from the West where smiles are reserved for special occasions. In Bali people just look at you, and the first reaction is generally a smile. It is a reflection of what they have on the inside I found, and entirely infectious. I was a little confused when the first light of a Balinese smile fell on me, as it was in passing through Customs, a place where stories of touts and forced offerings to the government abound. The customs officer did it when he waved us through, opting NOT to search our huge pile of luggage, gear and boards.
So how does one discover “the real Bali” these days? I mean typically one books a hotel rents a car and sits in a Westernized version of Bali for a week or two and if lucky gets tiny, diluted doses of indigenous culture. What if you want to go where there are not so many surfers and tourists? Maybe take that road less traveled? Out of my years of travel experience, here is a little of what I have learned regarding Bali.
When you land at Denpassar, have $25 American cash in pocket. It is for your entry visa. (When you leave, exit is 200 rupia). Then go pick up your bags. If you have nice little chalk exes on your luggage it is marked for search. You have several choices here:
1.Ignore the exes, get searched and likely have to pay a tout or bribe as we call them here (clerks generally keep part or all of it, depending on what they are able to talk you into)
2. Wipe off the chalk mark if no one is looking.
3.Employ a porter or group of porters who if you point out the chalk marks will generally slide you through.
I have done all three. It is an icky experience and a strange way for a Westerner to be introduced to Indonesia. But it is what it is.
Now legally in Bali, you need transport. Taxi is not a bad deal initially. But you must have an idea of where you want to go. Historically surfers always head up to the Bukit Peninsula, home to Uluwatu, Padang Padang and a host of famous spots Jim Banks helped pioneer. Great surf, lots of crowds, lots of surf tourism activity. It is a typical surf tourism destination. Unless you like the crowds of Rincon or Malibu or Trestles you may want to go somewhere else.
Pick a locale you are interested in and book a driver. Driving is dangerous in Bali. You do need an international drivers license to operate any motor vehicle. You get those at the DMV or AAA here in the states. Local drivers generally go for between $35 and $50 US dollars per day. (Vehicle and gas included for the most part.) A good driver knows Balinese culture, the ins and outs of the myriad number of holidays which often create travel complications, and best of all can direct you into a variety of “homestay” accommodations. This sort of lodging is very abundant in Bali and varies widely in service and quality. But basically you can get a standard of accommodation that would cost 500 a day in a Western style resort for $20-$50 per night. We frequently find great accommodations for $5-$10 per night.
Surf is where you find it. Bali is a series of islands and there can be surf everywhere. Your driver, and a decent knowledge of internet surf forcasting, can land you in the right locale at the right time without much trouble.
Bali is primarily Hindu and is therefore a Karma based society. So you get back what you put out, in a manner of speaking. A smile goes a very long way in Bali and will cover a multitude of cultural blunders common to Westerners. Here again, your driver can help ease the cultural crevasse. A good driver will be very motivated to share everything about Indonesia with you.
Travel safety is an issue within Indonesia. Register your travel itinerary with the State Department. When in Bali avoid restaurants and places frequented by Westerners and the risk goes down. The Karma thing allows for a certain amount of craziness to exist but I do know that the Balinese hate the few random bombings and those who engaged in them. Several times we found that places were earmarked for bombings. Though extremely rare, it can happen. Use prudence and you avoid the potential.
Drug use. Don’t do it. Don’t bring any in. Don’t take anything offered to you. Lock and secure your luggage. Keep everything with you and in eyesight at all times when passing through airports. Penalties are stiff. Capital punishment exists. Over time people have been executed for it. Including Westerners. Do you feel lucky, or are you just stupid? The end effect will be the same if you are caught.
All of the islands off Bali are available via various ferry companies through the local ports. Again, your driver can book it for you and often suggest homestays where you are headed. We found multiple great places on Nusa Lembongan, which is a short hour plus ride out of Sanur. These islands are a great option for cleaner water and more pristine conditions.
As in any geographic location, things are cleanest where there are less people. Western Bali, (Legian) is less populated than the East Coast and is surf rich. Avoid rivermouths in populous locales. They are the worst of the worst in terms of disease potential.
Inland locales such as Ubud and many other places are incredibly rich in culture and actually not that far from the beach. It sort of all depends on what road you choose for your trip.
Check out Lonely Planet guides for a glimpse into what your options are. Book your flight, (EVA Air is a great Indo carrier, as is Singapore Air) and go, and in so doing go well, as a guest, willing to contribute to this remarkable places recovery from the acts of a few misguided fools. Contrary to what you read in contemporary media, a decent human being is the single best agent of positive change in the third world. Plus, it will be an adventure and a lot of fun.
Posted June 2007 Blue Edge Magazine. All rights reserved.
Wavelengths
Text and Photo by Michael Kew
A Wave Runs Through It
Owls hooted in darkness, frogs croaked in the marsh, wind swooshed loudly through the pines and gnarled cypress. At the campground it was a cold, heavy night—nights behind storms are always so, the sky impenetrable, moonless, starry, and with cold hands I held cold bottles of beer, drinking one after another, until finally the frogs and wind and roar of surf knocked me out.
At first light I smelled cow dung—the wind was offshore. I rose quickly and walked out to the beach, where large swell broke with mass confusion. There was no one around, no runners or dog walkers, no coffee drinkers, no fishermen, no surfers. It was six-thirty on a freezing Tuesday morning in late January, night mist still clinging to the beach, gulls huddling together at the mouth of Salmon Creek, flowing fast and fat with rain and brown farm silt.
East was a psychedelic sunrise, orange and pink swirls painting the sky above the ridges of Mount Roscoe and Irish Hill, the grassy slopes specked with silhouettes of sheep and black beef cattle. To the north was rocky coast easing eastward into these soft hills, unspoiled by homes or wineries, and to the south lay a thousand acres of sand dunes, rimming Bodega Harbor, leading into the low sheared mound of Mussel Point, piercing the Pacific at the south end of the two-mile-long beach.
Camping in winter eliminates creature comforts and outdoor cooking, instead replaced by hot smoky campfires, tipsy postprandial walks, rough slumber without good shelter. It is time best spent alone. And so driving along Highway 1 in winter too may harken of times preceding Sonoma’s chambers of commerce and expensive Sea Ranch homes, before the vintners and abalone pickers and gargantuan RVs, before elegant art galleries and bed-and-breakfast romance, before retirees and southerners en masse fled their suburban sprawl, which people actually needed to escape so they could revisit nature. But when the south was rural, why go north? It was much colder, much darker, vastly remote—decades ago, to Southern California surfers, Santa Barbara was a fringe, Santa Cruz was arctic, and nobody seemed to know what lay north of San Francisco.
That night I ate cold pizza and drank beer in fogbound darkness on the south bank of the Gualala River. The campground was flooded with rain beneath dripping redwoods, bordered by the fat river’s muffled rush. There was no noise from insects or animals—only water. I sat on a wet picnic table and watched the wide river when the fog broke, illuminated dimly despite the absence of moonlight.
Around three in the morning I woke thinking a jet airplane was landing nearby. It was heavy shorepound, the booming thundercrack funneled to my campsite along the river corridor. Since dusk the wind had died and the swell had hit—a giant westerly with a twenty-five-second period, strong and orderly, undoubtedly the winter’s best swell.
At dawn I parked in a pullout above the river, which was separated from the ocean by a narrow spit. The surf was huge, the sight impressive — because of the high tide and the beach’s severe drop-off, sets were slamming full-force onto the sand, immense wave energy accumulated over thousands of Pacific miles at last terminating in violent fashion.
Suddenly a rogue wave flooded the spit, scattering a flock of gulls and spilling into the river, the wake quickly forming a riverine version of what had created it. This chest-high river wave peeled flawlessly for dozens of yards in both directions before expiring into the riverbank, one of the most bizarre acts of nature that I had ever seen, in the middle of a Northern California river, an occurrence so rare it was an incredible stroke of luck to capture it on film.
From Scotland to Tahiti
By Chuck Graham
As one local continues to rise, another fends off mediocrity.
Ventura's Dane Reynolds has jumped from 41st to 3rd in the World Qualifying Series (WQS) in the last three 6 star events spanning the last two months. During the coldest stop on tour at the Thurso-Scotland O'Neill Highland Pro from April 24 - May 1, Reynolds finished equal 13th and earned another 1388 points toward qualifying for the ASP 2008 World Championchip Tour. Nathan Hedge (AUS) won in the frigid conditions.
So far this year, Reynolds has combined his freakish ability with competitive conformity, and it's serving him well on the globetrotting WQS.
The WCT hasn't been as kind to goofyfooter Bobby Martinez, as he contiues to struggle after three events. Last year's ASP Rookie of the Year and world number 5, has yet to surf out of the third round during his sophmore season, settling for three disappointing 17ths. The WCT counts each surfer's 8 best results out of 10, and with seven contests remaining the pressure continues to mount with each heat.
Last year Martinez won the Billabong Teahupoo, Tahiti event, his first WCT victory. This year he started off well, winning his first heat handily and advancing directly to round three. Conditions were marginal, looking more like a fun 2 to 3 foot day at Tarpits, instead of the gaping barrels associated with Teahupoo. In the third round Martinez lost to Luke Stedman (AUS), and now finds himself 25th after the third event with the Rip Curl Chile event on the horizon.
Damien Hobgood (USA) beat current number one, Mick Fanning (AUS) in the final with 30 seconds left in what was a dramatic come from behind vicotry.
Posted June 2007 Blue Edge Magazine. All rights reserved.
KELLY SLATER TO DEVELOP NEW SURF TECHNOLOGY WITH CHANNEL ISLANDS
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (April 30, 2007)—Furthering a relationship that goes back twenty years and eight world titles, Kelly Slater and Channel Island’s Al Merrick today announced that Slater will work with the company to develop new surfboard technology that will benefit the progression of the sport.
Slater says, “I am still excited about every board Al and I work on, even after 20 years. With Jake and crew coming into the company and with the depth of resources they can bring to the table I feel that we can create something totally unique in the industry.”
Kelly currently has several signature boards with Channel Islands. Combining efforts is the next logical step for both as they work to progress the sport. Channel Islands was purchased by Burton Snowboards founder Jake Burton Carpenter in 2006, which has allowed Merrick the opportunity to concentrate on the craft and develop new and better surfboards. Having Kelly provide feedback on the development of new technologies is also in line with Burton’s own “rider-driven process” of incorporating athlete feedback into each one of its products.
“Kelly and I have a great longstanding personal and business relationship,” says Merrick. “I am excited now that we have the resources and technologies to develop new and better boards. I know that Kelly is going to play a massive part in this and his involvement will help lead surfboard design into the future.”
“It’s our goal to work with Al to see that surf technology can progress faster than ever. We have all known that Kelly is an integral part of this process, and not merely because of his standing in the sport, but because of his unique understanding of what makes a surfboard work, his determination to make it better, and his commitment to finding ways to accomplish this in a more environmentally friendly way,” says Jake Burton. “I look forward to being around and benefiting from Kelly’s involvement and leadership.”
About Channel Islands Surfboards
Founded by Al Merrick in 1969 and based in Santa Barbara, California, Channel Islands Surfboards shapes boards for many of the world’s best surfers. For more information, visit: www.cisurfboards.com.
Media contact: Shana Frahm (802) 373-2374 or Travis Lee (805) 566-0963.
Domoic Acid on the Rise
By Ben Preston
If you were concerned about the frequent occurrence of dead and dying birds and marine mammals upon local beaches last year, prepare for a worse situation this year. An even larger algal bloom—the worst in history in the Los Angeles harbor—will cause a higher-than-normal level of domoic acid (DA) to which these creatures are exposed.
DA is a toxin found in blooms of phytoplankton algae, which is fed upon by shellfish and small bait fishes, such as anchovies and sardines. When birds and marine mammals feed upon these organisms, the DA—which is concentrated in the tissues of the shellfish and small fishes—acts as a neurotoxin, causing seizures, brain damage, and eventually death in severe cases.
So far this year, record numbers of dead seabirds and marine mammals have been found washed up on beaches—including a 29-foot sperm whale near the University of California at Santa Barbara—from Santa Barbara to San Diego. The California Department of Health Services (CDHS), which normally issues an annual quarantine on sport-harvested shellfish from May 1st until October 31st, issued its quarantine early this year, in accordance with record levels of toxins found in shellfish in the waters off Santa Barbara. The routine testing conducted on April 24th showed the average toxin level to be about 450 parts per million—far above the 20 parts per million requiring a warning to be issued.
CDHS biologist Greg Langlois stated, “This toxic bloom has reached shore at various locations from Monterrey Bay to Ventura—and produced very high toxin levels. It is our hope that oceanic conditions will shift and push it further out to sea, or that it will run out of steam…before reaching shore farther south.”
Although no human illnesses have been reported, high levels of domoic acid can affect human physiology, causing the same symptoms as those exhibited by seabirds and marine mammals. Because of this, the quarantine on sport-harvested shellfish spans the entire California Coast, including its bays and estuaries. San Luis Obispo issued a warning against consumption of the dark-colored organs and viscera—commonly referred to as crab butter—of anchovies, sardines and crustaceans.
To report sick seabirds in the Santa Barbara area, call (805) 966-9005, and for sick marine mammals, call (805) 687-3255. For deceased animals call Joe Cordaro of the National Marine Fisheries Service at (562) 980-4017. In Ventura County, report sick or deceased animals to Animal Care Services, at (805) 388-4341.
For more information on quarantines and health advisories, visit the California Department of Fish and Game website: www.dfg.ca.gov. The CDHS Shellfish Information Hotline is (800) 553-4133.
LNG Update
By Ben Preston
Friday, Governor Schwartzenegger sent a letter to the US Maritime Administration disapproving Australian firm BHP Billington’s application to build a liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal off the coast of Ventura County.
Although Schwartzenegger supports LNG as an important part of California’s future in energy diversification, he also maintains that state environmental quality and clean air standards must be met or exceeded before any project will be approved. BHP Billington’s plans fell short of the mark.
His letter states: “As we look to the future, and to the possibility of an LNG facility off the coast of California, it is important to understand that there are many diverse projects currently being proposed by different companies that are pursuing state approval.”
A lack of action by the Governor would have resulted in the application being deferred to the federal government, which has different application approval protocols and environmental standards than does the State of California.
A Green Wave for Surfing
Making boards used to be hard on workers and the environment. One small company is pioneering efforts to clean up the process
by Jeffrey Gangemi
Back in December, 2005, the price of a custom surfboard shot up by $200 in surf shops across the country almost overnight. The reason? Surfboard shapers had panicked, reacting to news that Clark Foam, the $140 million industry's only major supplier of foam surfboard blanks, or the raw material shapers used to fashion surfboards, was shutting its doors after 44 years in business. Founder Gordon Clark had pioneered the production of foam surfboard blanks, keeping prices so low that he all but eliminated his competition.
Few, if any, of the thousands of shapers—skilled craftsmen who cut, sand, paint, and cover blanks with fiberglass and resin to make a finished board—had seen Clark's demise coming. That meant there was no major supplier in position to step in to meet demand. But the shortage of foam blanks was only one of two major problems facing the industry. The other was image. Clark's closure drew attention to the very real environmentally hazardous manufacturing practices few associated with the surf industry. The reality clashed with surfing's idyllic, environmentally-friendly image.
Clark had closed because California's Orange County Fire Authority had repeatedly reported Clark Foam to other government agencies, including the EPA, which cited the company for its continued use of the toxic chemical toluene diisocyanate, which can cause severe and chronic lung problems.
CLEANER TECH
Clark finally shut down his Orange County (Calif.) facility of his own volition, rather than face the legal fallout, according to a memo circulated by Clark at the time he closed. The media attention on Clark's closure shed light on this and other environmental problems associated with the production of surfboards, such as the use of polyester-based resins, which are harmful to the worker and emit noxious fumes. Most of the industry, long silent on the fact that manufacturing a surfboard is a dirty process, was poised for change.
A handful of small companies had already been working, some for up to 20 years, on cleaner surfboard-making technologies that would cost the same as the dirtier ones. But they couldn't find a hole in Clark's monopoly to successfully introduce a product. Among the the contenders was Homeblown U.S., an independently-owned six-employee San Diego (Calif.) foam producer that had developed a foam production system that was similar to Clark's, but was safer for workers because it didn't emit volatile fumes.
Homeblown had started in Britain in the late '80s and held a 50% share of the market for blanks there. But Clark had such a dominant position in the market that it wasn't practical for Homeblown to open in the U.S. until the factory closed, says Ned McMahon, Homeblown's managing director.
REPLACING FIBERGLASS
Today, as Homeblown gains a toehold in the U.S. market—though it still produces only 75 to 100 foam blanks a day, compared to Clark's 1,000—it's ramping up its efforts to bring more sustainable surfboard products into the market. The company has introduced what it calls Biofoam, the industry's first plant-based polyurethane blank, made out of over 50% plant-based resins, which sells for the same price as a traditional blank— between $90 and $200, depending on size. Thirty-year veteran shaper Craig Hollingsworth is using Biofoam in all his boards and says it's just as good as traditional foam from a functional standpoint.
Channel Islands, one of the world's largest surfboard-shaping companies, is currently testing Biofoam and may add the product to its line. Another company, Patagonia plans to add Biofoam as well. And Homeblown is also working on adapting hemp cloth to replace the fiberglass used in boardmaking, and experimenting with biodegradable alternatives to the polyester resin that coats the boards.
Still, by all accounts, the push to make cleaner surfboards is just beginning. The industry at large is slow to change. McMahon says traditional foam production levels have actually increased since Clark's demise. He adds that offshoring makes it hard to compete, and says two of Homeblown's main competitors, including Bennett Foam, have moved their operations to Mexico to keep prices low and escape the same stringent environmental standards that may have prompted Clark to shut down.
"A NEW DAY"
A spokesperson for Bennett disagrees. She wrote in an e-mail to BusinessWeek.com, "Mexico has its own set of EPA standards which we follow and are compliant. We exercise the same standards that are required by the States."
There's no doubt that the end of the monopoly in surfboard blanks has paved the way for cleaner ways of making surfboards, with independent businesses taking the lead. "It's a new day today, and since Clark closed, we have had an opportunity to look at how we're doing things, and it would be irresponsible to duplicate what he did when we know better now," says McMahon.
Posted June 2007 Blue Edge Magazine. All rights reserved.
