Learning how to surf in Bali

After Singapore, I arrived to Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, on the island of Bali in Indonesia. The flight was right on schedule but after landing I experienced the longest lines and wait time ever for me. First, everyone lined up to show their Covid-19 vaccination certificates. The second line was for visa on arrival and the third line was the immigration line. After that we got our luggage and headed to the customs line. It took about 3 hours for me to step out from the airport gates.

I had booked an 1,5 week surf camp with Kima Surf in their Seminyak spot. Before booking, I went through many reviews of the multiple camps and ended up with Kima as my final choice as they seemed to have the best reviews about teachers and the atmosphere. And I wasn't disappointed.

I've never been a good surfer but I have always enjoyed it. My very limited surf experiences in Australia in 2018 were not very successful though fun, which is why I enjoyed to the fullest when I realised that maybe I could be a bit better at it. I came in with the attitude that no matter what, at least I would've given it my best try.

I had booked a 5-day-long surf school for beginners since it had already been a while from my last waves. The school was always in the morning and in the evenings we could join the waves on different beaches graded with difficulty levels from one to six. I think there were higher levels as well but the levels from 4-6 were already for professionals.

I didn't do much else than surf for the first week. Two lessons a day, food at the camp and sleep. I had no energy for anything else. I did make some friends and just had some chats about surfing in the evenings but otherwise my body was not in a good shape. I had huge bruises everywhere and my knees were open since I still messed up my pop up daily and scracthed my knees. My hands were getting blisters which opened during the day and tried to heal during evenings.

Seminyak camp was a great place to heal as well. Two pools, amazing food and lovely people. After lessons you could take nap by the pool (in the shade, usually, for me) but mostly everyone discussed about today's waves. How were the waves, did you catch any, how many did you catch, which level waves were you catching, how was the wind, your body, bruises, and many times someone had lost a fin or even cracked a board on the reef spots. Surf camp had a lot of talk about surf and everyone seemed to be excited to learn more.

The food at Seminyak camp was delicious. The camp restaurant was owned by the same people as The place with no name restaurant in Uluwatu. They had some local dishes and some flavours from all around the world.

On my third day I think one of the best surf teachers came to me and instructed me on the beach a bit more. After a couple pop up practices I could feel the difference and got to ride a few good waves. The lessons in Kima were for maximum of 6 people with 2 teachers, which was great and ensured that everyone got very personalised instructions. I also joined two lessons that were taken on video for us to see ourselves on the waves - see what our pose on the board looked like and understood better on how to correct ourselves.

After a week and a half my body started saying no. I had not planned much ahead for Bali, but I did have 3 weeks to spend. I packed my stuff and headed to Ubud and to the northern shores or Bali for a short break before returning to the surf camp for one last stretch. I'll return to the stories from Ubud and Lovina on my next post.

After my return to the surf camp I decided to take it a bit easier. Just one surf lesson per day. I enjoyed good food in the company of my new friends, explored the very touristy areas of Seminyak and just relaxed. I went to a hairdresser as I have heard that the prices in Australia are quite expensive so it was better to do it in Bali.

Relaxing brought some results as well. My body wasn't as exhausted every day and I started to catch some green waves (the bigger ones that have not yet folded). Not many, and I have no picture evidence of it, but those few waves I'll remember for now, until I'll catch more of them.

To end the post, here's a couple more screen captures of me catching waves and looking happy to have surfed.