Text + photos: Amin Freedom

Not too long ago Bali was looking way overcrowded. It felt as if surfers were flooding every spot on the island. Every time before sunrise there were already so many surfers out in the water.

It was this that started us thinking it was time to leave the island to search for new waves and sensations. Deciding where to go wasn’t easy. As we know our country has such vast areas with so much great surf. Even with knowing this, planning the trip still presented challenges. We were at the mercy of Mother Nature because even with Internet forecasting you can never totally predict the weather.

During a surf session at Keramas, Rizal decided the trip would be to Pacitan. After sussing the 411 on Pacitan from a friend living there, we checked the latest photos to judge recent wave and wind conditions. Finally we were on our way with a surfing crew of Rizal, Bruce, Benji, Betet, Jay Davies, Garut, Marlon, photographer Damea, videographers Matt Gye and Jimmy from Oz, and Abe Lerner – former lifeguard from Hawaii who was the jet ski master.

This group became two teams, one traveling by land and the other by air. Since we were going the land way the trip was much longer because we were trailing the jet ski and had to drive slower. Had we driven the regular speed the trip would have taken around 14 hours. This time we easily took a whole day traveling. Leaving in the middle of the night we finished our trip at around 9:30 pm that same day.

The call to prayer from the mosque by our hotel had us up early before our alarm rang. Shortly after we rushed to the point that was about a 45 minute drive away. As we pulled up we were greeted with a view of waves fanning into a whitesand beach. There wasn’t one surfer in the water. Bruce and Benji paddled straight out. Not long after that we saw a solid set approaching. Bruce was in the perfect spot. He took off and stood tall inside a wave that was easily 8 foot.
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