by James Carys

It's the time of the year here in Bali now that really sorts out the crowds as the winds are starting to shift to onshore around the Kuta area and my home breaks on the east are showing signs of offshore life as the wet sets in.

Over the last week the island has been smacked square in its beautiful face by a straight five to seven foot swell sending waves ricocheting up both sides of the island from Legian to Medewi on the west and Nusa Dua to the northern most eastern side of Bali.

Of course the Gods decreed that I choose this ideal swell window as perfect timing to ride around the northern parts of the island in a mini road trip for this edition of Hello Bali meaning that, torture of torture, not only did I miss some of the best spots firing on all guns (I hear Sri Lanka's in Nusa Dua has been magic over the last few days) but I also got to 'find' some of the more remote waves on the island breaking in that mechanical fashion everyone knows and loves Indo for. How I wished I'd taken my board along for the trip.

By the time I had reached the end of the west coast and was making tracks in the direction of north coast dive spots Lovina and onto Amid I had seen a magnificent Medewi performing at straight six foot for three surfers in the water at eleven am and stumbled across a beautiful little A frame spinning glassy delights not too far from the fabled and ghostly quiet Balian region. Thinking that the madness would have abated on my re-entry to wave central on the east coast two days later I was mortified to find wave height still in the four foot range and I was downright suicidal when I took a wrong turn to a beach that geographically shouldn't have a ripple in the water to see solid four foot tubes being ridden by a lucky bunch of tight lipped local boys, and one ecstatic Austrian voyager who had literally fallen into a Bali pot of gold. I can't (read that as will not) name the beach but it's out there waiting to be discovered as are a handful of other crowd free breaks, time to start boning up on those swell charts for the start of the 'right' season over here.

There's been a few more similar days earlier on in September that have seen my home break Keramas light up and start to dispense east coast barrels all day long and even the sleeping giant Sanur has shown some form, but only for those smart enough to be rattling up the bypass on a pre dawn raid on the first day of a decent swell. Keramas (thanks to some heavyweight international magazine exposure) is now as crowded as a Saturday night on the tiles in Kuta and is game over pretty much from first light; unless you are either very lucky or it is very big (six foot max) and best left to the travelling pack of pros that have now started to invade the east coast with their camera-wielding circus entourage.

Standing in a bookshop in Singapore a couple of weeks ago I was thumbing through the October issue of Surfer magazine. Towards the back of the mag was a feature on the surfing perfection of the East Coast of Bali and local surf icon Rizal Tanjung was quoted as saying 'The east coast of Bali in the wet used to be the island's best kept secret' and he isn't far wrong, it still can be if you're prepared to do the hard miles up to Gianyar and beyond into the real east of Bali and far away from the turmoil of the south west circus rings.

So welcome to the summer months and a fine season of wet season waves to come, certainly my favourite time in Bali for discovering new places and faces before the madness of the 2007 winter season kicks off once again.

Happy east coast wave hunting...