In the land of extortion, you have to watch your back, as word has it ...

A couple of days later we took a cab ride where I had to actuallytell myself it was really just a ride at an amusement park and thosecars coming straight at us weren’t really real. I grabbed the “ohs*#!” handle and just laughed. It was fun- kind of. That cab ridetook us to our next destination: G-land.We drove all night and parked in what seemed like the middle ofnowhere and were told to sleep for a few hours- the driver thendisappeared. It was the middle of the night, I half-woke up and sawpeople meandering around carrying a large wheelbarrow type thingfull of brush. I fell back asleep with voices and music in the distance.It seemed like there was always a ceremony going on in Indonesia.tourist spot. We were going to stay at a surf camp in the middle ofthe jungle, in a national park, on the tip of the island of Java… Outin the middle of nowhere!Our surf camp, Bobby’s G-Land Surf Camp, was kind of like, well,like camp. We had a nice little cabin with mosquito nets, sharedbathrooms that are kind of scary, a mess hall, a pool table, pingpong, and a movie room, except you don’t spend your days inoutdoor workshops learning about cool knots you can tie out ofreed… you just surf your brains out.The beach is a long stretch that hosts some of the best wavesin the world and it was a little intimidating. And, once again,I’m the only girl. We befriended a few of the older guys who hadbeen coming there since the Stone Age and they showed us how topaddle out, where to sit, and most importantly where NOT to sit.I found that as long as I surfed at high tide I felt ok. Even if youwiped out, there is enough water that you can get tossed aroundand not hit the bottom. Low tide is a different story. If you wipeout, you get dragged over the reef and the camp director has tosew you back together. No thanks.I became familiar to the religious night sounds of Bali, but thiswas different. A different religion, different songs, different music.Where are we and what are we waiting for???By the time we woke up, it made sense. We were parked in thefishing village and were waiting for the tide to come up as we wereto take a boat for the rest of our trip to G-Land.People were bustling around, the fishermen were in, women wereon shore ready and waiting to clean the fish. We stuck out like sorethumbs carrying our cameras and our gear through the black sandbeach littered with fishing nets, past the elaborately carved sailboats and out to our high tech speed boat. The women didn’t evenask if we wanted to buy a t-shirt or a sarong. It was definitely not aThe first day I caught two good size g-land proper, super fun waves.Wow. That was enough for me! Success and not scared, I paddledback in. Will stayed out and caught a few more waves that made histrip worth it, unaware the second day was going to be even bigger.Will had a case of “Bali belly” and was in bed trying not to throwup; I ran into my friend from Oahu again so I paddled out with himand his buddies. It was a little foggy, kind of eerie and mackinghuge.A set came through and I scraped to get over it but I didn’tmake it. Like a super kook I went over the falls backwards, and Iknew it was going to happen too.I took a deep breath and tried to relax before being thrashed andheld down under water. I popped up, realizing I’m ok, and notedgetting thrashed on big waves isn’t so bad. My friend tried to playit off like it was no big deal, but confessed later at dinner that hethought I was going to die. I could see it on his face and I realizedI was way out of my league. I went in without catching a wave forthe first time in years. I didn’t feel so bad though, a couple of theguys that were out there also chickened out and went in too. It wasreally big.We stayed at the camp for a week. For the remaining days, thesurf was so big that nobody really went out to the good spots, butrather all trekked down the beach to smaller breaks that were reallyfun and easy. Places with names like “chickens”, yea, that’s mykind of spot. The camp manager, Puma told us about another spoton the other side of the peninsula called “reverse G”. They’re tryingto promote it as the next G-Land, but you have to take an expensiveboat ride to get there. They don’t have a camp set up and theyprobably never will. “Why?” We asked. “Tigers,” said Puma. Right.Tigers. No thanks.Camp was fun and fortunately Will got better quickly. We surfed,and listened to stories about smuggling drugs in speaker boxes fromVietnam through Thailand during the war.Did I mention you Aussies are crazy?One special night after dinner I learned a new, way more fun ritualfor birthdays. Instead of that really bad drawn out depressing tuneof happy birthday, your cake is paraded around the party for everyoneto see, followed by a procession of people drumming, bangingon pots and pans, clapping and general noise making. As the cakeContinued on page 64wSSm | womenssurfstyle.com | 35