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

Home Grown
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

Jungle Drums

advertising index for
Bali Echo web site

All this corporate cleanliness begs the question: why is Quik-silver so eager to be an environmental goody-goody? Did the company genuinely forsake fast profit for the sake of the greater, greener good? Or is it simply that green also happens to be the colour of the surf dollar? “Any large-scale development such as what was being proposed would have destroyed the reef and promptly eliminated one of the world’s top breaks from the surf map,” explains Wales, who asserts that such a prospect made it easy for Quiksilver to steer away from the five-star resort option. Indeed, the mandate Quiksilver had been offered by a criticism-weary Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)- the body responsible for the WCT’s then pitiful series of breaks and thus under heavy attack from professional surfers - was to develop “a new product at an exotic location pitched at television coverage rather than crowds on the beach.” That mandate, as well as the long-term commercial value of ‘exotic’ surf camps such as that at G-Land, made it easy for Quiksilver to avoid bitter boardroom wrangles over whether the company was to travel the low-key, environmentally friendly or flashy, luxury resort path. According to Wales: “Surfing holidays aren’t about setting off in a combie van to explore the unknown coast any more. The coast is well and truly colonized and over-populated nowadays. The surfing holiday of today is in the tropical surf camps such as at Sumatra’s Mentawai Island, Fiji’s Tavarua, and Java’s G-Land. If we squander the natural surroundings of these camps, we leave surfing without a future.”

Perhaps the trade– off for foregoing the offer of helping transform Plengkung National Park into a five–star resort was that Quiksilver assist the Indonesian government in its environmental diplomacy. According to Quiksilver’s official G–Land website: “The Plengkung National Park has been preserved in its natural state by the Indonesian government.” Notably, Quiksilver has also proven keen to take part in environmental campaigns of its own choosing, such as 1997’s International Year of the Reef. Prior to last year’s event, the sponsor extended special invitations to journalists, film–makers and photographers to document the so–called ‘rain forest of the sea’ at G–Land and promote its preservation in the interests of surfing. This year, Quiksilver are to participate in a similar way in the International Year of the Ocean.

Certainly only the surf scene could bear an event in this mode. Any other sport would by now have erected facilities of Olympic scale – stadiums, giant video screens villages, hotels – for the Quiksilver Pro breaks just about every record in the book. By the end of 1997 it had been rated the contest with the most 10s scored and the highest–scoring heat of all time, and it is also un-precedented in stipulating a minimal four–foot swell before the competition kicks off. Voted as the most–favored contest in Australian Surfing Life’s 1997 poll of the Top 44, G–Land ultimately tests their skills at barrel–riding on one of the fastest left–handers in the world, and the Quiksilver Pro affords them with the opportunity to spend twelve days on it each May.

As the smash–hit video of last year’s event reveals, absent there are all the less than sportive unpleasantries, guarded jealousies, bodyguards and drug tests, etc. so common to other sporting events of similar prestige. Produced by veteran Australian surfer Tom Carroll, this best–selling documentary shows the cream of the surfing hierarchy, unruffled by the fans that accost them at the WCT’s other events, fraternizing in an atmosphere as laid back as the groups of ‘Joe Bloggs’ surfers that fill its tree–huts for the greater part of the year. Here, Carroll and his brother (“Nick Carroll, PhD in Surfology”) spend their evenings picking over the reef and marveling at the alienesque life therein. Quiksilver Pro title–holder Luke Egan and World Title-holder Kelly Slater snuggle into the sand and confer quietly about the affect of board length and width on ability to ride the foam–ball. And the only stadium is provided by the sea itself, from which contestant– spectators, afloat their boards, create a brouhaha of cheering, jeering and arm– waving as they observe heat after heat from out the back.

If the news that the WCT was coming to G–Land returned a bubbly enthusiasm to the circuit, it left administrators at Quiksilver International with a throbbing migraine of which the accessibility problem was just the beginning. It wasn’t only a matter of getting competitors, administrators and press into the camp, which is separated from the nearest road by 16 kilometers of thick jungle - they could be brought in by boat from Gradjagan as surfers had been doing for the last two decades. But for an event that favored fast press coverage over hoards of spectators, how were daily news updates, or for that matter injured surfers, to be ferried out in a hurry?

Everyday before 3pm, unedited tapes of the day’s events followed a route something like this: having been unloaded and wrapped in several layers of plastic to make them watertight, they were rushed by inflatable speed boat to Gradjagan, whisked by motorbike to Banyuwangi, lugged to Gilimanuk by ferry, bus-ed to Denpasar, taxi-ed to the airport, flown to Jakarta, taxi-ed to the Reuters office where they were quick– edited and up–linked Hong Kong, then re–edited and sent around the world. Such was the so–called Pony Express, the voyage traveled every day by documents of each of the event’s heats so that they could be telecast nightly on CNN. And when Derek Ho severely injured his leg in a practice session prior to the commencement of the event, he was not airlifted out because the event had been left helicopter–less by the Indonesian general elections with which it coincided. Rather, he followed the same Pony Express marked out for the Reuters–bound video tapes, and not until three days later was he safe and sound in a Hawaiian hospital.

G–Land’s broad reef which, when nudged by the deep swell of the Indian Ocean creates the legendary G–Land break, was another source of stress for administrators of the event. So vast is the reef platform that surfers on the break are almost invisible from the beach. For judging purpose then, a tower had to be built on the reef , to which a complete set of office equipment had to be shipped and electricity supplied by an underwater cable.

This year the event will no longer be helicopter– less, a direct satellite link– up will eliminate the need for the aforementioned Pony Express, and participants are to be shipped in directly from Jimbaran Bay in Bali from where a commercial power-boat now makes regular return voyages to G–Land. On-the-spot quick-edits and direct up–links will allow competitors – from the exotic comfort of their jungle hideaway, and fans – from the mundane comfort of the bamboo sofas / community halls / favourite surf cafe in various far– flung parts of the globe – to catch the day’s heats on CNN or Australia TV that night. As always, pressure will be on top seeds to maintain their ratings: Slater, who kicked off the season in March by clinching the Gold Coast’s Billabong Pro, and Mark Ochilupo, who made a gob– smacking come–back last year after a gossip – ridden four year break from the circuit, and who recently wrestled No. 1 rating from Slater after winning Torquay’s Rip Curl Pro in April. But lower– seeded competitors such as Californians Shea and Cory Lopez and Tim Curren and Byron Bay’s Danny Wills also promise to spice up the Quiksilver Pro, as do the four wildcards. Bali–based Rizal Tanjung is to compete for the third year as the Indonesian Surfing Association’s wildcard entry. He will be joined by veterans Tom Carrol and Gary Elkerton, as well as Derek Ho who, forced out of the WCT by the severe leg injury he sustained at G–Land last year, has been awarded wildcard entry into every event on the WCT’s 1998 circuit by the ASP. So, if you didn’t happen to bump into these and other surf luminaries at All Star Surf Cafe’s pre–Quiksilver Pro party on May 26, try inadvertently hanging around Bali’s best breaks and surf bars after June 9. You might just happen upon a surf hero on holiday.

Above:
1. 1997 title-holder, Luke Egan.
2. The Quiksilver Pro reef tower.

by Emma Baulch
Photos courtesy of Quiksilver

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