My finger was drawing dangerously close to the end of the page-long list of names and phone numbers, and my patience was beginning to fail. Had I heeded the first three responses to my request for interviews, I would have ditched this story idea there and then.

"Absolutely no comment"
"I'm ducking for cover on this one"
"You're opening a can of worms"

So much for the sources who have otherwise been most helpful since, as a wide-eyed non-surfing ignoramus, I start writing surf stories for this magazine. Previous pieces had been uncontroversial, rather fluffy profiles of local surfers, coverage of contests, or reports on surfing tours. But in choosing to delve into the history of Bali's surf administration, I seemed to have pricked one of the local surf scene's most acute wounds.

Indeed, it is a history which raises the question of whether Bali's surf community really lives up to its close-knit stereotype. Throughout the 28 years of its existence, the organization responsible for assisting promoters in administering local and international contests, helping to link fresh talent to prospective sponsors, and running events especially for Bali's burgeoning flock of ambitious grommets, has experienced a number of metamorphoses, and not all of them have been smooth.That is, during its first two decades, between 1975 and 1995, Bali's surf scene appeared to be administered with relatively few hitches. Its recent history, however, is plagued with a split in the ranks, thus providing great material for a gossip piece on the local surf community.

But this is not that sort of piece. The research for this story led me beyond the tiresome ping-pong of accusations of corruption, bad management and political expediency to a line of Enquirer about the broader social implications of the conflict. Why, for example, in a cultural context where communal voluntary work for the community is both systemized and given, have Balinese surfers' found it so difficult to work together in serving their own community of surfers? And further, what could have broken the 'love-of-the-surf bond that is supposed to bind surfers eternally, and caused such friction in the local surf community that national and local administering bodies find it impossible to communicatee?

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
When five kids from Kuta established a club they called Young Surfers in 1972, the organizational politics of Bali's surf scene took its first step. Bobby Radiasa, one of the founders of Young Surfers, says of the Club: It was like a proclamation of existence. We wanted to make ourselves known to other surfers, and at least to try to rally a surfing mass bigger than five people." Indeed they did, and by 1974 Made Dharsana, Budhi and Nyoman Khayik had joined Froggie, Adi, Sudirtha, Riffa and Radiasa to establish the Surfing Club of Bali. Radiasa remembers: "Only then did we set up a proper organizational structure, but it was still pretty much all over the place. We used to meet at Lasi Erewati's losmen where alot of surfers used to stay, including Gerry Lopez and Mike Boyum, who were both very supportive of the Club."

below: The cover of a 1975 edition of Surfing World, featuring a young Wayan Suwendha (currently co-treasurer of the BSA) and Australian surfer Mark Anderson

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