DIY dudes

Despite our best efforts to look the part, as soon as we get in the sea Joe and I immediately betray something of the all-the-gear-no-idea persuasion of surfer dude. To combat this, we continue to practice, aka play the long game. In the short term, we take steps to give the impression to our fellow surfers that we are, in fact, as gnarly as they. By ‘take steps’ what I of course mean is make props.

A key accessory if you’re a surfer dude is to wear a horrible necklace of some kind: sometimes a shark’s tooth, but more often an incomprehensible symbol made from shell, rock or coral. These are sold everywhere by earnest salesmen who will give you a boring monologue their items’ symbolism if you so much as blink in his direction.

Or you can make your own, which is what we did. For the benefit of fellow wannabe beach posers, here’s how:

1. Go to a beach
2. Find an enormous piece of dead coral, the bigger the better
3. Attach it to a piece of weathered leather string
4. Spend a few seconds coming up with some meaningful statements about its background/magical powers/the fantastic surfing trick you were engaging in when you found it

Once you’ve completed these 4 steps, all you need to do is let it dangle casually across your naked chest and wait for other dudes to approach and give you respect. Here’s the one Joe made:

Finding Hansel

After a short spell on the Gili islands, and a failed attempt at enjoying Lombok, we’re back in Bali where the food is cheap and the people are cheerful. We toyed with the idea of sailing or flying to Borneo or Sumatra to track down wild orang-utans, but it all seemed like too much effort as we’d have to take at least two extra flights and endure bus rides... far too much like hard work. I’ve promised Laura I’ll dye every hair on my body orange and only eat bananas from now on to compensate for not seeing the real thing.

With two weeks to kill in Bali, we’d left ourselves no choice but to buy a surfboard and become proper surf bums. With a meagre budget I went out with strict instructions not to come back without a surfboard, preferably one over 8ft tall – a good size for learning. I was keen for Laura to come along as chief negotiator as I was wary of falling in love with the first (and most probably unsuitable) board I saw and agreeing to pay whatever the shop was asking for it, yet I couldn’t raise her interest in the dealings so went along solo.

The process of buying a surfboard is much the same as buying a snowboard, pair of skis, any sort of sporting equipment in fact. In other words, it helps enormously if you know what you are talking about. If you don’t, the sales person usually picks up on it quickly and goes for the hard sell on the most expensive and ridiculous thing in the shop. This may have happened, but I am not completely sure as I know virtually nothing about surfboards.

I walked away from the shop positive I’d struck gold and sure that Laura would be most impressed. It was only 2ft shorter than requested and 50 percent more than we had agreed to spend. It must have been the canary yellow that distracted Laura from these pitfalls as she appeared genuinely impressed with my purchase. Unfortunately this only lasted until we took it out for a spin and discovered it’s virtually impossible to catch a wave or stand up on the thing. Perhaps it will grow on us...

Adding to Laura’s Introduction to surfing, here are a few new-found afflictions that accompany the activity:

1. On top of having to wear a rash vest I’ve splashed out on a pair of Speedos. I stress these are purely for medical reasons, I wouldn’t want my nether regions grated off by the board. Watch out London fields lido...

2. My nose has become a storage tank for a large percentage of the Indian ocean. Hours after leaving the sea my nose will leak salt water like a broken tap onto anything and everything in front of it.

Surfing: an Introduction

The first morning after our arrival in Bali, we ran to the beach in a frenzy of excitement, quickly hiring boards and slapping on a cursory layer of suncream. The minute that followed revealed a number of unwelcome truths:

1. The board they give you to learn on is approximately twice your height and three times your weight. You are leashed to this monolith with a piece of cable and some Velcro.

2. Getting this board to the water’s edge requires Herculean strength.

3. I’m scared of the sea, specifically:
a. The waves (enormous)
b. The undertow (vicious)
c. Good surfers (might blast past, impaling me on the point of their boards)
d. Bad surfers (might lose control and lose their boards in the vicinity of my face)
e. Water getting into my goggles and stinging my eyes

The weight of these truths caused me to exit the sea approximately 60 seconds after first entering it. With a quivering lip and goggles beginning to fill with the hot tears of shame, I stayed on the sand while Joe hastily found me a boogie-board. Clinging tightly to my piece of foam I managed to catch a few waves without drowning. Meanwhile, Joe leapt fearlessly into the surf and found his sea legs almost immediately and cut a fine figure as he blasted towards the shore .

4 days later...

Since writing the above, some progress has been made. I have been upgraded to a proper surfboard and have on about 2 occasions stood up on it for a bit. One of the reasons surfing is so tricky is that it makes several different bits of you hurt. Here is a summary of the body parts which are currently causing me grief:

1. Thumbs. These get blistered. Or at least mine do, Joe’s are fine. No idea why, possibly it’s from gripping the board too tightly as a result of paralytic fear.

2. Torso. After the first day, we both found our torsos had been scratched raw in some places from rubbing continually against the roughly waxed boards. Further damage has been prevented by the acquisition of rash vests, but it still hurts.

3. Knees. These are scratched and sore, again from the board rubbing.

4. Arms. These ache royally as a result of hours spent trying to hoist my body from a lying-down-on-your-front-being-scratched-position to a surfer-dude-upright-standing-position.

5. Front of body. In order to get far enough out to sea to surf, you must first walk/swim/drag yourself and your board through about 18 waves of increasing size and strength. This is akin to being ambushed constantly by an enraged gorilla and the constant pummelling is very tiring.

6. Head. The bigger waves make it harder to keep a firm grip on your board. Sometimes it slips out of your hands, rises up with the wave then bonks you squarely on the head.

In spite of this catalogue of aches and pains, surfing is, annoyingly, rather fun. So I expect we’ll be putting ourselves through the mill for as long as it takes to stop being rubbish (in my case) and start being offered sponsorship deals (in Joes).

Sights of Bali

Hard to see from the picture, but my budget shorts are actually rusting.

This is the memorial site that lists people who died from the terrorist bombings in 2002 and 2005.

Handmade street decorations just outside our hotel.