Spearfishing G-Land?

Scotty & Brett just got back from G-Land and Scotty sent me this epic update:

Wow Gland is perfect... The wave seldom drops below 4ft and the wind blows off shore everyday... You surf till you cant paddle, cause you just cant get out the water. We surfed 2x3hr sessions every day, bar one when we went for a dive and then we surfed that arvo for 4hrs...


Our trip was made up of Brett Pengelly and myself, it took us to bustling Bali were we arrived in Kuta, a hectic tourist spot were there are more scooters than people, and more surfers than scooters, they come from all over the world, Swiss, Swedish, Dutch, German, Argentinean. You question why they don't stick to mellow beach breaks instead of the fastest lefts over shallow urchin invested reefs. But surfing is way too cool in the world today..we truly are blessed here at home!


So after a long bus ride all night across Bali and on to a ferry and then on
to Java, we arrived in a fishing village filled with brightly coloured boats bringing in hundreds of little fish. We were amped, there where tons of little fish so there were sure to be Doggie tooth tuna, running a mock. We were whisked away then on our boat which took us out to the peninsula which is a National Park and were the camp is based and off which one of the 10 most perfect waves breaks..

Indo style Spearfishing!!

Only a surfer knows the feeling. this phrase I have no doubt, was coined when surfers came across a spot were the corduroy lines are stacked for far and looking into the eye of the barrel, the lip seems to drop mechanically as the swell runs on and on and on. Every one on the boat smiles..


The Accommodation was fine, its not world class but every thing you need you
will get..

So we surfed and surfed, drank Bintang, surfed got massages and surfed for 9 days.. Except for the second day.. when we went spearing. We took our gear all of it barring our suits, and we had excess baggage, lots of it.. As luck would have it there were no boats to take us spearing, the only boat there was, was for ferrying surfers out on the high tide, so we pleaded for al captain to drop us off the point, he obliged but said we had to swim in. The peculiar thing about our trip, and were we were caught short was the water temperature. We envisaged warm indo water and only packed our "Summer Johns", no sleeve suits. The water was cool, like Durban in August. So after 20mins of diving in 15m water in tropical paradise, our teeth started to chatter, it was cold.


There was a huge school of Kingies 50/70 odd. Brett plugged one, I missed.twice, and then they were gone, rest of the session was spent looking at beautiful colored fish of all shapes and sizes like an aquarium. Brett commented at the speed of the current, to which I was oblivious as the jungle looks pretty much the same when looking at it from far. Only then after studying it did we realize that we were about 3km's from our drop off and way round the point of Gland were the off shore was side shore. We attempted to swim against the rip back to the point, there was no point... it was miserable swim, we were moving slowly, so we decided to can the thought and swim for backline. Now it was a full 5ft, the tide was on the way out, it was barreling the side shore complicated it an we knew of no channels to sneak in on .. we made it scratched and battered, and painstakingly tiptoed over the sharp reef back to our camp, and that was our diving for the trip..


Gland is made up of a few section, at the top its Kongs and it has a few sections to it, then Moneytrees, then Speedies. We surfed Kongs for the big drops and drawn out turns and Monies for the racing Back hand barrels, there's not much to say about the wave or the off shore which fan's it everyday all day. but that its in every top ten list of waves to ride.. enough said..


The crowds were a worry for us, but they shouldn't have been, There were 90 people there in total made of from all the different camps, 70% of the surfers are kooks from every corner of the globe, they get exhausted and are limited to 1 surf if that a day, There are 3 major parts to the wave so even at the busiest afternoon sessions there were about 12 on each section and of the 12 perhaps 3 will be catching all the waves. Brett an I surfed the Arvo's but we preferred the mornings from 7 - 11 and we surfed a lot just the 2 of us with a couple of euros we brought out for company.. It was good.. and we got more Quality waves in those 9 days than I think I will get
for the rest of the year and next winter combined..


Then we left hit the town in Bali, and just made it to the Airport for our flight out, I then realized that my Back Pack was left in the taxi,. Panic. got it with 30mins to take off. The lady behind the desk couldn't be sweet talked like here at home. We were 18KGs over and it was US$50 per Kg.. More panic.. So we left stuff. all our Spears plus gear, it was cheaper buying new at home, the rest went in checkers packets as hand luggage.. we looked like the "Bag Men".. we made the flight and got home.. only to discover that what even the draining barrels of Gland could not damage the professional staff at SAA made no fuss of by "snapping" All 3 boards???? I didn't even think that was possible..

AAhh the joys of travel. but it was well worth it best waves of our lives..

Aloha
Scott