East of Bali: Surfing Indonesia

The wave breaks in two sections, both about 200 meters long, with remarkable consistency and form. On big swells and small the wave peels evenly across the reef suspended by the southeast trade winds and its own momentum.

May 10: Turtle for lunch today. None of us could guess what it was at first. It wasn't goat -- we'd had that a few days ago -- and it wasn't chicken or fish. Kazu suggested it might be "Pintu"

"Huh?"

"Pintu ... turtle," he explained. And so it as. Not bad with ginger and gravy.

The food in the compound of the Kepala Desa, or village chief, has a reassuring sameness. Rice, papaya greens and meat. Twice a day, every day. In the mornings there are fresh rolls and coffee. You can't complain though: he only charges us $3 a day.

May 15: Torpor. The sea is calm; the merest fringes of white lace the reef at low tide. Otherwise all is still. Matt and I are tearing through the books at an alarming rate. I read the books I'd brought from India first -- Robert Byron's Road to Oxiana and Jane Urquhart's The Underpainter. Then we got into the trash: Clancy, Crichton, McCourt, Sagan, Robinson ... even a Western. I'll save Dante's Inferno for later.

There are few other distractions on this island. No phones, no TV, no faxes, no cars, no mirrors -- only the whinnying of wild ponies and the snuffle of pigs rooting through the dirt in the coconut grove beyond the compound's fence. When the surf is flat there's nothing for it but to sit on the bungalow's verandah and read.

May 16: Market day today. Most of the village shows up for the event and people come in on ponies from the neighboring hamlets. It's mostly women selling produce in the market. They squat behind blankets heaped with betel nut, bananna, papaya and donuts. A few men sell hard goods -- batteries, soap powder, playing cards, kitchen utensils and plastic buckets -- from more elaborate stands of bamboo and reed matting. Overhead, thick trees rain down yellow leaves shaped like slices of pear.

I bought a papaya, which will be ripe in a day or two, four banannas and a score of baked sweet rolls at 100 rp each. Now we're back on the verandah where the only sounds are birdsong and the wind stirring the palm fronds. That, and the heavy thud of coconuts hitting the sand.

I wonder what the odds are of getting conked by a coconut. Has anyone worked out an actuarial table for coconut-related injuries? I'll wager that, on this island at least, it's far more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than squished in a car wreck or struck by lightning. When I walk through the grove on my way to the reef I keep my eyes up and my ears tuned to that brief rustle of fronds that could signal death from above.

May 24, en route: The wake of the ship is wide; a smooth path of lighter water in a dark cobalt sea. We left sight of land hours ago and there is only the trum of the engines as we plow north across calm water. Matt is perched on the port rail, gazing into the future. He's motionless behind his sunglasses so it's difficult to tell if he's asleep or only daydreaming.

About an hour ago I looked up from the crime novel I was reading to see a fountain of spray settle to the ocean's surface 200 meters aft. A minute later another plume erupted from the water. It was a whale, the first I've ever seen, taking air. Two more misty sighs, then an arc of flukes above the surface and it was gone.

June 3: Perfection is not to be attained by this mortal. This morning at a righthander called Periscopes I saw perfection. Glassy barrels on waves with four-foot backs with only 15 guys in the water. One slim Hawaiian kid was the standout, taking off deeper than anyone and making four-second tubes. I caught one small wave -- no barrel -- and fell off another.

The swell was building and later in the day Matt and I paddled out at a left called Nungas. It was well overhead and I was glad to have my big board, a gunny 7'4". I picked up one of the set waves out the back and made a long drawn-out bottom turn. The wind was hard offshore so I kept my left hand on the face of the wave while I was temporarily blinded by the spray. The board rollered off the top, I pulled into trim, and for a moment I was aware of the wave curving over and around me. Then just as quickly I was out of it and carving big turns on the face of the wave. I came humming into the last section (this board actually sings when it's moving fast -- I don't know why), rocked off the bottom and rode over the shoulder with so much momentum that the board skated over the flat water for a few meters before I collapsed laughing. It was my best wave of the trip.

June 9: I'm back in Bali now to sift through six weeks of email, sort out the finances and gorge on Western food. Tomorrow it's out to Medawi, a long lefthander on Bali's west coast, for five more days of surfing before flying to Sydney and the inevitable job.

The Inferno begins with this tercet: "Midway along the journey of our life / I wake to find myself in a dark wood / For I had wandered off the straight path."

Does anyone have Virgil's phone number in Oz?