It’s pretty rare guys like Taj or Joel will bother showing up at a qualifying series event, let alone something as minor as a QS1000, but that’s what’s happening when the Komune Bali Pro presented by The Mad Hueys kicks off at Keramas. Taj and Parko, along with other big names Bruce Irons, Jay Davies and Jack Robinson, will compete against a bunch of local upstarts and low-ranked QS battlers at the infinitely mind-surfable right-hander, and they’ll do it with no real money up for grabs and fuck-all points. They’ll do it because Keramas has been one of the best high-performance waves of the last fifteen years and consistently dishes up good surf for the comps it holds, be it the World Juniors, small-time qualifiers or God forbid, a Championship Tour event.
Not a bad set-up. Photo: WSL/Will H-S
‘Last year Taj went to Bali and reckoned the Komune Bali Pro was one of the most fun events he’s entered in twenty years of surfing,’ Parko told the WSL, before going on to also reckon that the 2013 CT he won out there was one of the best he’s ever surfed in.
Considering the contest is being put on by the surf industry’s equivalent of the Jackass crew (less crazy, more drunk) and hosted at the oh-so-exotic-and-kinda-depraved-looking Komune resort, the event seems to have the ultimate surf-party-vibe for surfers, who, in between heats on the world-class right-hander, can kick back poolside with Bintangs and soak things up like they’ve never worked a day in their lives.
Add to that an innovative night surfing expression session with DJs pumping phat beats from the beach, and you can definitely see the appeal. For QS warriors it represents a welcome reprieve from their usual diet of grind and grovel—a glimpse ahead at the dream to come—and for heavyweights, a chance to cut loose without having to worry about points or ratings. A holiday, basically (as if they needed one). But all that being said, you’d still have to assume it’s the quality of the wave that’s drawing them back.
It’s hard to imagine guys like Taj or Bruce or Joel showing up if the event wasn’t held in such a highly-rippable corner of the globe. Which indirectly, sort of, um … raises the question … why isn’t the world tour stopping there? Why is it not stopping in Indo at all?
A better post heat interview than Strider? Photo: WSL/Will H-S
Every year thousands of people flock to the once-mystical archipelago in the hope of scoring full resolution mag-quality surf and a cracking good mi goreng. And generally they find it. Sure, it fluctuates a bit and each season can be better or worse than the last and the crowds are outrageous—but rarely do surfers get skunked.
Yet the top 34 don’t go there. They surf Margies and Rio and France—which I’ll be the first to agree all get amazing on their day, but with the same kind of quality and consistency as Indonesia? (Or even Bali alone?) Not a chance. The few times the CT has visited Indo, the waves have pumped. Keramas in 2013, Padang back in ‘08, the legendary G-Land comps (and videos) of the 90s. Last week young Angourie ripper Chris Zaffis took out the QS1000 Mentawai Rip Curl Pro at Lance’s Right, in waves that—if you’ve seen the video—were undoubtedly better than anything the CT’s scored this year.
‘I didn’t even feel like I was surfing heats out there,’ the stoked little mongrel told me after his win. ‘It was so special to get such crazy waves and barrels with one other mate out! I’m sure the CT boys envy us QS guys for once.’
Well I hope they do, because some frothed-out grom just won in the kind of waves they signed up to surf and meanwhile the dream tour’s off to Rio, just as the Indo season’s kicking in.
Last year, a freshly victorious Taj claimed, ‘I’d love to see a CT event return here, it’s just such an incredible setting for a competition and the wave is so much fun.’
And that’s why he’s heading back, and Parko’s following, carrying the knowledge that the world’s best surfing still happens in the world’s best waves.
