Nusa Lembongan

  The day after my birthday a few of us decided to leave Kuta for a few days. Obviously hungover for the trip to Lembongan. We left the hotel by 9, shuttle bus to Sanur, then transferred to a small boat to take us out to the island. 

   After an hour and a half or so we pulled into a bay where the water was so clear it looked to be about 6 inches deep, you could see most of the detail in the rainbow colored reef while floating along. Made it to shore then had the usual hassle for a place to stay and what not, we then walked down the beach and found the perfect place for all of us, of course this place was at the far end of the beach and it was about 30 degrees outside, but we made it nonetheless. 

     After checking in, eating lunch and swatting the flies that Tom's fresh fish attracted, we explored the island a bit before dinner. There wasn't much to do other than surf, and even that was only good during certain tides, a lot of chill time. 

  The next day we were way off with the tides, so once we woke up we hurried to get into the surf while it was good. Had a morning session at a wave called Playgrounds, followed by an evening surf at Shipwrecks, and then some chill time. Ty and I walked around the seaweed farm right in front of our place and shot a few photos. 

Every day when the tide was low enough, the bay out front would fill up with seaweed farmers gathering and replacing the seaweed from the intricate beds they had layed out. The seaweed is not used here for anything, it is all exported to Japan and used in things like ice cream and make up.

We did come across some hazards out there while walking around.

 The following day we surfed Playgrounds again in the morning, then made a paddle over to Lacerations for a few waves until a boat load of about 10 surfers paddled over, back to Playgrounds before lunch. 

     That afternoon all of us went out with our boat captain who took us to some pretty unreal snorkeling locations. The first of 3 was beside a cliff that met the ocean on one of the opposing islands, huge spires of coral came up almost to the surface and the amount of colorful fish was insane. We climbed back into the boat and el capitan drove us a few hundred meters down the cliff face. Jumped out and noticed an eerie drop off right underneath us. This place was called, "The Wall" and supposedly is one of the deepest channels in the world. There is about 30 meters of reef coming from shore before the bottomless drop off. I was definitely scared. 

The next day we rented motorbikes and did some exploring, here are some of the things we found:

 The gecko was just outside our hotel, and the water shots are from a place called, "Devils Tears." The waves here crash into the rocks and come exploding out of caves shooting water back out to the ocean, or run up on the rocks and created stunning waterfalls for a few seconds. We even saw some dolphins playing in the waves here. 

  On the other side of the island there is another wave that isn't nearly as popular, we spent a sunset there and I shot a few photos. These are just some scrap shots but I can't get over the color of the water here. Check the bottom left corners on both. 

      Just before sunset I met some friendly local kids who wanted there photos taken. They put on a good show, and kept screaming, "More, more" every time they heard the shutter click. Even their fathers were keen to pose for a photo and show their catch of the day.

The sunset was pretty awesome, a good way to spend the evening for sure. 

Ty, Klara, and Keri left the following morning and Tom and I stayed one more night. Good thing because Nusa Lembongan had quite the surprise for us.....

Tell ya what it was later.

Hello Bali

So I'm about a month behind, I have a lot of catching up to do. I just seem to find it hard to get to internet when there are perfect tropical waves everywhere. 

I have definitely spent too much time in Kuta, but done a few trips in between, those are to come. Until then, here is a video I recorded one morning from my balcony.

Later Taiwan

 From just about halfway down the east coast, my friend Keri and I traveled to the southern tip to a city called Kenting. Now this place was nice, palm trees, white sand beaches, bright blue water, hostel right across from the beach, things were lookin' up. We checked in to Afei Surf Hostel, then walked to one of the surf breaks, non-existent. Great.

We decided to rent a scooter and go to the main street market. We paid for the scooter and then got a look at it, an old Vespa, 50cc with a seat barely big enough for one person. The two of us crammed on and putted the couple kilometers to the action. Crazy busy, reminded me of Thailand, just lights and food vendors and shopping. We ate a bunch of street food, played an awesome shooting game, then drank a bunch of beers outside of 7-11 before putting back to the hostel. (I didn't manage to take any pictures of the action, but have a video of it all in progress)

  The next morning we got up and one of the hostel workers took us to a nearby surf break, a beachbreak located about a half an hour away. We surfed head high waves, nothing special but best of the trip so far. Afterwards we did some more exploring and found ourselves at 7-11 for beers again. 

 This was when we decided to cut our Taiwan adventure short and fly to Bali, we called the travel agent and set it up for a day later. We took the high speed rail back to Taipei, played in wheelchairs while we waited for our flight, then took off. See ya later Taiwan.

Taiwan #2

 So, it has been a while since I have been on, Taiwan is well in the past now, but I have some things that I neglected to share. My friends and I spent some more time in Donghe, surfing, skateboarding, exploring on our scooters and even did some gardening with the locals. We were then treated to beer, along with budding flowers for a snack.

I haven't been shooting as many photos as I should be, but I did go on a little mission to a National Park located under the highway bridge. Other than the buzz from the passing traffic it was a pretty amazing place.

On one side under the bridge was dense jungle with a nicely eroded rocks, and the other was a slow moving stream that ran into the ocean, at the river mouth was one of the surf breaks. Although we didn't score any epic waves there, it was nice to surf without a wetsuit.

Along the river there was a huge group of these fascinating white birds. I'm not sure what kind they are but when they would fly around it reminded me of something from the Planet Earth series. Of course when I wanted to take photos of them they were all sitting around, so a couple of my friends volunteered to spook them to get them flying.

We then found some cows, tried to convince one of my friends to go and touch one. He didn't quite get there, but he came close.

This monument was located on one side of the bridge, apparently surfing is quite popular in Donghe, I was pretty stoked on it.

At the end of the trail by the ocean this sign was pointed out to me, I definitely had a laugh. This was our last night in Donghe, and 3 of our friends were leaving the next day, it would be down to 2 of us to finish the trek down to the southern point.