Can you imagine surfing overhead Uluwatu with only six guys out? You could. Easily! And by doing it you could also help save and protect Bali’s magical coastline just like abunch of absolute legends did yesterday during the 10thrunning of Uluwatu Challenge – a Quiky event that goes down annually in conjunction with Bali’s Big Eco Weekend. For a paltry 250,000 rupes (about $20) competitors are given a conny cap, a conny tee and two half hour heats in an Ulus line-up completely cleared by water patrol for the entire fricken day!
Are you shitting me? It gets better, Quik also drop a flamboyance of pro surfing royalty into the draw so there’s a good chance you’ll wind up surfing a heat against Mark Richards, Riz Tandjung, Simon Anderson, Ketut Menda, Tom Carroll, Made Switra (this year’s Champ!), Paul Brizzo Surman, or Matt Fucken Hoy. And that’s to say nothing of crew who entered anyway knowing they’d be threading pumping Racies all on their lonesomes, guys like Bruce Irons, Ozzie Wright, Dylan Longbottom and Torah “I’ve got an Olympic gold medal and you don’t” Bright.
The rest of the draw is made up of a few local boys from the Uluwatu Boardriders and good old regular punters like you and me. That’s right, hard working, salt of the Earth, true blueblokes and sheilas who’d usually struggle to get a set wave at our home beachies, getting called into sets by MR at the Bukit’s most famous reef! It’s dead set worth booking an entire holiday to Bali for and like Tom Carroll said before jamming his blow-up mattress (knee surgery) straight into the pit like a sock full of walnuts into a thermomix, “Helping out Bali has never felt better.” Stay tuned to the Quik facey page for next year’s event.