Posts

CAUGHT INSIDE # 132 IT’S UP TO US

Image
With the collapse of the Bingin cliffs due to greed, Surftime asks, is an ethical future for tourism development possible in Indonesia? Or is it just too much to ask? For this month’s editorial, something a little different. We put this question to writer Jack Oneill Paterson. Here he is: Bali, more so than any other surf location on the planet, is romanticized in the memories of old white men. Nowhere was as good, and nowhere has been so cruelly spoiled by fame. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Bali has always endured an unrelenting onslaught of slanderous commentary from surfers, critics and moral purists across the globe. It has been mocked for being inauthentic, over-populated, polluted, and sterilized. Whilst Bali’s early clientele of dope-smuggling surfers turned into today’s OnlyFans millionaires, buff business moguls, and Russian fitness bloggers, surely this would make for an interesting study in human metamorphosis. The cost of this change is never owed to the cynical expa
Post a Comment
Read more

SOLO ACT: THE INDEPENDENCE DAYS OF PHILIP DUKE

Image
No fourteen-year-old boy escapes teenhood without a keen awareness of exactly how the world sees him, what it expects of him. He knows the weight of the world’s desire down to the ounce. Every day is of ferocious importance. Particularly to Philip Duke. He has a lot to prove. But he’s given up on proving it to others. They have all been too mean hearted. It’s all about himself now. Proving to himself that they are all wrong. And this takes a supreme effort. A focus. An isolation. An aloneness. An advanced sense of self. Even a coldness. After all, in his teen world, so much of it has been so cold to him. The ridicule, the jokes, the snide remarks, the deeply hurtful ones. And not only has he had to hear them, but he has had to take it. Still waiting for a life changing growth spurt at fourteen, still wanting to look his peers in the eyes without looking up, still waiting to be on a level playing field with girls, still waiting, he has suffered the ignorance of others. That mea
Post a Comment
Read more

CANGGU AND THE ART OF CRITICAL MASS

Image
Once an outland of mud and back breaking toil in the rice paddies, today Canggu is the new motherlode of rave tourism and development for the dreamseeker. Swerving this place of ancient agriculture into the hands of European interlopers and rapacious developers. Canggu now rivals the reputation of Ibiza as one of the grooviest places on earth to see and be seen. The thing is, just how much can it take? Because Canggu is all on its own. Once a surfing outpost, now an overpopulated colony, it’s been cut off from the rest of the Island of Bali. The natural disaster known as tourism, combined with an absolute lack of civil infrastructure to handle it, has resulted in a geographical isolation due to snarled traffic. From Kuta Beach to Canggu, once mere minutes of driving, is now a bad two hours of breathing near pure carbon monoxide. And the once promised green zone “shortcut”, is now a famed biblical traffic jam that becomes as full as an egg. This traffic is a result of a massive e
Post a Comment
Read more

RIP CURL CANGGU STORE

Image
Rip Curl has celebrated it’s Canggu Store soft opening by hosting a Girls Go Surfing Day with Taina Angel Izquierdo on March 27th bringing at least 40 girls together in Batu Bolong Beach to surf, support each other and have fun for the day. The design of the store brings back modern industrial design of exposed steel structures and the use of recycled teakwood and ulin to bring some of that rustic feel into the store. The idea was then to take that language and combine it with something more contemporary, which reflect the vibrant character of Canggu. 1ST floor carries full range of Men, Women and Kids apparel and a section to introduce Rip Curl surfboards. 2nd floor is the Surfboards area, with DHD, FIREWIRE and PYZEL as the pillars, a hardware section and a complete collection of Wetsuits for both Men and Women. The major positives about giving more volume with that extra height is to give a sense of breather, given the context of the surrounding that is packed and visua
Post a Comment
Read more

THE 5TH ANNUAL TWINNY FINNY SURFEST PRESENTED BY THE LAWN

Image
Another incredible year of waves and surfing with world class action in and out of the water! Saturday started with open mens and womens providing entertainment for the crowd through the course of the day. Stand outs including Rizal Tandjung, Shane Sykes , Western Hirst and Jaleesa Vincent. Sunday’s finals day had perfect 4-6 ft waves on offer, there was nothing short of high flying world class twin fin surfing taking place. The mornings quarter finals set up for what was to be one of the best afternoon of finals and surfing we have seen for the Twinny Finny surfest. From the charging junior boys and girls, to the highly anticipated opens women’s and men’s, all categories provided pure entertainment for the bustling batu bolong beach. As the sun set, Kura Kura beers flowed to a completely packed beach of surf fanatics. So stoked. The bar has been set and we thoroughly look forward to seeing you all next year for the 6th annual Twinny Finny surfest world championships.
Post a Comment
Read more

THE COSMIC CONNECTION - SEEKING THE SOURCE WITH RICK GRIFFIN

Image
What a time it was. And what an artist to capture it. By 1970 the shortboard revolution had taken us to places on waves we could never have imagined. And, due to the prevalent drug culture of the times, to places in our minds as well. And it took a surfer/artist like Rick Griffin to manifest the cosmic vision. Famous for his flying eyeball Jimi Hendrix posters and putting the Grateful Dead on the map with his electro skulls, when Griffin turned his mind to his first love of surfing, it became ours. Let us never forget the “Murphy: cartoons of Surfer Magazine either. All said, Rick Griffin captured an era in ink. An era that still resonates today in Bali, especially in Canggu. Take good look at these pieces. One a spectacular naivety in comic cold water form and the other a reflection of the mother ocean (Which was also the poster for a seminal surf movie by John Severson). All told, an inner vision of the times from an surfer who was deeply connected to the sublime beyond the edg
Post a Comment
Read more

CAUGHT INSIDE # 131

Image
Death is no big deal, it’s living that’s the tricky part. And don’t we do that well, us surfers. Living, I mean. Oh no, maybe not always, measured by societal success, but in the goal of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we win. Every time we jump in the ocean. It’s that pursuit of happiness thing. On the face of a wave, a really good wave, there is literally no where else we would rather be. Think about it. In bed with a lover? Or rocketing down the line with a perfect wall lining up in front of you. C’mon, be honest. George Greenough, 70’s kneeboarding savant, even named his seminal surf movie about it. The Innermost Limits of Pure Joy. We’ll say two things about that. One, it was the first time anybody ever filmed surfing from inside the tube. And with a home made housing with a hand wound 16mm camera crammed inside it worn on his back and weighing 30 kilos. Think about that the next time you have a weightless Go Pro clenched in your teeth. Don’t worry, we don’t expec
Post a Comment
Read more