Why Spot X?

I was quite amazed recently to hear of dramatic actions being taken to segregate zones of coastline for use by traditional surfers and Stand Up Paddle Surfers in Hawaii. Being able to catch waves far earlier than the standard surfer the SUPS meant that a bias towards using these longer heavier boards was becoming an issue on established surf breaks. It got me to thinking; "Is the Ocean actually that crowded with surfers that there needs to be measures such as this taken"?

Likewise, I always thought of surfers to be the peace loving, nature appreciating, easy going 'dudes' we have been led to believe. Stereotypical characters, unfazed by the hectic cacophony of life so long as there are bands of liquid energy to be ridden on any given day. To an extent I had an awakening this past year in witnessing the other, darker side of Surf sports, that of tribalism and frustrated violence.

Now I understand that if you're on a wave and you get dropped in on then you have the right to be frustrated. The Golden Rule in surfing is to NOT take a wave of someone already riding it, to do so is to incur the wrath of the surfer claiming that to be 'their' wave. As with driving a car, you look both ways at a junction before pulling onto the main road, likewise with surfing, make sure the wave is available before jumping on. Makes sense. The arguments and fights I've seen this year borne of frustrations of people who believe to have had 'their' waves stolen by lesser beings has been quite the revelation.

On the other hand I've also witnessed a certain tribalism where waves are concerned. Take our 'Spot X' here in Bali. This spot is not a surfers wave, it's a shore break, direct at times onto sand. For anyone to surf this would require them to be super fast and also quite crazy. So my buddy introduced me to the place, he's been 'sponging' this location off and on for a number of years, always being careful to try and mask his entry and exit spots. Well we were out there a week or so ago and along comes a local surfer, cool, nothing wrong with that. With any locals one has to respect that this is maybe their home break and that they normally have right of way. OK, so we're in the water, no exchanges, along comes the swell. My buddy goes for the wave, the local starts paddling and when he failed to get the wave started shouting obscenities.

His diatribe was cut short by my buddy who's grasp of Indonesian is almost perfect having lived here for the past 15 years. After failing to catch another wave our admirer left the water some ten minutes later to then stand on the beach and shout and scream at us one last time before disappearing off in the direction of the next break. When we eventually left the water I asked my buddy the words of the exchange. The gist was that we were only visiting and that we should not take any wave that this guy was even thinking about riding, hmmm OK, time to brush up on those telepathy skills. Whilst this was a mild interaction there are many a story of severe beatings being dished out by locals on any 'visitor' arriving at 'their' break uninvited or without financial recompense.

The desire to keep breaks such as this quite to the masses is therefore the reason why places are often called 'Secret Spots'. There are many tens of surf breaks on the island of Bali, each host to outbreaks of frustrations borne of the transgressions as mentioned above. All we can do is hope that when people do walk past our own little 'Secret' is that they realize its lack of surfability and keep on walking.

Image taken with a Canon EOS500D fitted with a Canon 15mm f2.8 Fisheye Lens (fitted to a cropped sensor this lens is more like a 24mm hence the lacking of the accentuated edges). This rig is then slotted into a Liquid Eye surf housing.

Cheers, catch up tomorrow for more Ocean imaging...
Mark
liquidmocean