You can warn people about the dangers of heading into terrain they’re not qualified for till you’re red in the face but some folks just demand to learn the hard way.
Case in point, this tourist couple in Bali paddling into heavy surf on rental soft top surfboards were thoroughly appraised that they were in over heads by the locals but summarily dismissed their warning with the simple statement….“We know what we’re doing.” Whelp, that didn’t seem to be the case and they got clobbered big time. Luckily a professional film crew on hand and captured the carnage with cinematic beauty.
Moral of the story….if you’re in a sketchy spot and the locals try to save you from yourself, you should probably listen. Find full details of the incident below:
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When your friend tells you Bali is not crowded yet…watch until the end. Thankfully none of us got hurt!
Few weeks ago, classic high season day at Bingin. Fun 4-5ft barrels, early afternoon offshore, full moon and mid to low tide with the end section reef starting to look dangerous… As usual, it was a compact line-up shared by a couple of locals, a few pros such as Jack Freestone and Alana Blanchard as well as some mortals like me.
It went flat for about 20 minutes and we spotted what looked like a young couple paddling towards the line-up on rental soft tops. We could instantly tell it was their first time on a surfboard by their goofiness and sunken surfboard nose stance. Eventually they made it to the line-up, paddled past all of us and sat way out the back as if they had priority.
A bunch of us Koby Bbberton , Agus Gag_ or Couzinet Jorgann spoke to them and tried to warn them that it was a dangerous spot and situation. When I told them the safest would be that they leave paddling through the channel as it was dangerous for them, he looked at me and answered with an Eastern European accent “We know what we are doing.”
The long awaited set comes in and the guys nicely call me into the first wave. Perfect fun little barrel in which I get deep enough to not see what is happening outside. I could not see the couple on the soft tops until the very last second and could not do anything about it. I instantly held my direction strong and put my hands to the front to try and avoid hitting them. Closed my eyes and braced for impact but to my surprise, not only I missed slicing their legs by 10cm but I was also able to make it out of that triple barrel, kind of in shock…
Matt Crigs was perfectly placed to get the water angle whereas Christian James Lee from Not Smiling Co. Productions got the beach angle.
The following waves washed them ashore and they did not come back. Perfect example of how out of control surfing can grow..
Go to your local surf school, take a week to learn the fundamentals before putting yourself or others in danger. Thankful I did not get hurt but many things could have gone wrong.
