June/July, 1998
No. 035/VI/98
cover story
After The Boom
What future is there for
Bali's modern theatre
scene?
Warung Society
Bali has its own history of
communal philosophising
and coffee-drinking
Renaissance
Twenty years of Bali's
Festival of the Arts
beyond
bali
Sumbawa's
Secrets
Photographs from
Kuang Amo
regular
features
Dangerous
Times
Orchestrating a
cremation in Ubud
A preview of
the Quicksilver Pro
Adventure
Getting over a fear
of diving
Health and Beauty
Foreign aid for
optic
health
Books
The Painted Alphabet
reviewed
Food
Two boutique hotels,
two top chefs
Fiction
'Our Moon'
by Mas Ruscitadewi
advertising index for
Bali Echo web site
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Bill Boyum was
several hundred feet above the ground when he discovered it. In 1973, on his way from Bali
to Surabaya, he decided to take a peep out the window of the light aircraft in which he
was travelling right at the moment it was passing over break so perfect that it would just
as aptly be named SFW (Surfers’ Wet Dream) as G–Land.
Not that Boyum had any idea that the lines of white foam that aroused his surfer spirit were later to become known as G–Land, a name that has since taken on mantra–like status in international surfing scene. Nor did his bird’s–eye view reveal the village toward which the swell seems to throng – and after which the break was later named – Gradjagan. But it was enough that he could see the ruffled white hem of a turqouise ocean and the vast, forboding jungle which it came to meet, for this imbued Boyum with the thrill of a challenge. On returning to earth he set his sights on penetrating the jungle and, armed with a surfboard, did not turn back until he had broken through to the virgin surf that lay beyond it.
Boyum
had trudged round the jungle for two days before he reached the lip of the Indian Ocean
where it meets East Java’s southermost point at Plengkung National Park. And with
only three days supply of water he was forced to retrace his steps inland as soon as he
hit the sand. But as truncated as his sojourn was, he succeeded in marking out a path that
was to be trodden by many a surfer in the years to come, particularly after he established
the G–Land surf camp. But Boyum’s dogged fixation traversing impossible terrain
to reach the awesome break is hardly novel to those who know anything of the surf scene.
Surfers frequently perform life–threatening acts for the sake of tasting an unreal
tube. What is extraordinary, however, is that this out–of–the–way place is
now the location for the sport’s most raved– about contest. For it is here that
the world’s top 44 surfers plus four ‘wildcard’ competitors meet every year
to compete for the biggest prize money in the history of surfing. They come to compete in
one of the World Championship Tour’s (WCT) four Grade Two (the highest-rating
category) events - the annual Quiksilver Pro.
It took someone like Quiksilver International to listen to the surfers a couple of years ago when we were just screaming out for good waves.” Thus opened Luke Egan’s 1997 victory speech, which he delivered to a sparse audience from a makeshift podium on the sand. What Egan was referring to was the turn–around in the WCT since it welcomed the Quiksilver Pro, its only spectator–less event, in 1995. Prior to that this 13–contest tour, where a tiny elite of 44 surfers thrash it out for the world title, consisted entirely of what were mockingly referred to as ‘carpark events’. Over-determined by sponsors’ promotional interests, it was a circuit where event locations were not selected for the quality of the break but for spectator capacity. So as it forced them to tour the world’s most undesirable breaks, the elite of surfing was beginning to wonder why anyone would strive for the WCT. Then Quiksilver announced that they were to bring a world-class event to G-Land and the Top 44’s frayed wills began to mend and their dulled ambitions re-sharpened. Not to suggest that surfers received the news without hesitation, as it raised the obvious question: how was the multinational sponsor to stage such a prestigious event without wreaking havoc on the pristine jungle and adjacent coral reef for which G-Land had become so adored?
In 1995, Plengkung National Park remained almost as Bill Boyum had found it over twenty years previously. Six months before Quiksilver was to stage its first event at G-Land, the reserve remained impenetrable by motor vehicle. But when the international office of the sports clothing company put the proposal for the Quiksilver Pro to the Indonesian government, it was offered the chance to change all that, as Tony Wales, then Quiksilver International’s General Manager, remembers: “At first local tourism officials jumped at the idea, seeing in it an opportunity to develop the area as a tourist attraction of massive proportions, with five-star hotels and so on.” But Quiksilver, claims Wales, were determined to leave the camp exactly as it was, to preserve the reef and jungle and, by extension, in the interests of the future of surfing. This did not mean expecting administrators and competitors to endure uncomfortable conditions while participating in a grueling international sports event, for the camp is complete with a satellite-linked TV in its central restaurant and bar area, hot water and electricity. It did, however, mean being vigilant about keeping those who attended to a minimum, in order not to pressure the camp to extend beyond its existing capacity for 120 guests. And the only way to achieve this was by taking the plunge and staging the WCT’s first spectator-less contest.
Above:
1. What Bill Boyum saw.
2. Tim Curren at 1997's Quiksilver Pro.
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