What a day!!! I was up by 7am again as the dog and scooters woke me up as usual, but it's quite nice being up while no one is around in the morning. I was sitting on the sofa using WiFi not long after getting up and Aiden came along with his board, heading off to Serangan like he had the day before. Having spoken to him about the waves down there it sounded SICK, so I asked if I could join him. There was enough space in his scooter rack for both boards, so that decided it - game on. We had a quick breakie, then headed off.

It's about a 40 minute drive depending on traffic and Coppers, to the east side of the island about level with Dempasar. It's a long story but there were no helmets to borrow at the Villa, and we were on a tight time limit, so I had to hop on the back of the scooter without a helmet. Barely anyone wears them, unless they are going to/though Kuta (which we were) but we just hoped we would get away with it. Unfortunately we were busted by the first Cop box we went past. The normal routine is a fine and a telling off, then your on your way. Fortunately Aiden speaks relatively fluent Balinese, so managed to bargain with the cop down from $60 to a $15 and we were on our way again.

We eventually got to the surf at about 8:30am, and what a location! It's pretty hidden away down a dirt road, but obviously very well know, as it was busy when we got there.
There was a bright sand beach (a nice change from the brown sand of Canggu), backed by shacks all the way along the top. Luckily I'm used to it by now, but there were elderly women relentlessly trying to sell you everything from Water, to Mangoes and Massages. Aiden said hello as he knows them from all the times he has been there before, then we went off down to the water. It much more like the reef surfing I expected - you wade/paddle out across a shallow reef lagoon for about 100m, before reaching the break on the far side. Thank god I had just got reef boots, the coral was pretty sharp I have no idea how people did it without booties.

Paddling out through the channel into the line up I knew immediately it was by far the best break I had been to yet. It was crystal clear water about 6ft deep over the reef with head high and bigger PERFECT right handers peeling along the reef down into the channel.
We surfed for about 2 and a half hours, and I some absolutely awesome waves, I was stoked! I could barely contain my excitement whenever I got a wave and paddled back to where the pack was sitting.
It was seriously busy though - the main takeoff peak must have had Atleast 40 people sat on/around it. To start with it was a bit intimidating, but then you get used just trying to out paddle people for waves. A couple of bomb sets came though close to double overhead high, which I'm not afraid to admit I was bricking it and scratching for horizon faster than ever to get out the way of. One set reminded me of videos I have seen of Pipeline, one guy got himself into probably the biggest barrel I have ever seen it was mind blowing.

After the surf we were paddling back out over the lagoon, and passed a guy sat out with a huge camera. He said he had some photos of me, so I went to check them out in one of the beach shacks. Sure enough he had caught almost every way I'd got, and I bought 3 photos for $5 a pop, which is was sick!

By this time it was 11:15am and Aiden had to be back at mid day for a 'family excursion' so we jumped on the scooter and blitzed it back all the way to Canggu without another police stop, getting back just in time.

The rest of the day was much less eventful - I started reading a new book Saskia had just finished called 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo', while sitting by the pool. I put some Singapore and Bali photos on Facebook too. Later I had to go to the ATM to get money to pay for my accomadation etc, so had a quick surf check. Both Canggu and Echo were crap due to the onshore wind, especially compared to the perfection of the morning, so I didn't go for a 2nd surf.

Later on we all just had dinner here, I sat up chatting to Aidens Mum and Sister for a while after he crashed, then I hit the sack too by 10pm.

(Photo - one of the photos I got of me surfing Serangan this morning!).