Kuta
Kuta in Lombok is supposed to be a surfing town. There are multiple surf schools, board shops and ding repair shops. It seems every other scooter has surf racks on it. The funny thing is, no one ever really surfs at Kuta. All the spots are 15 minutes to an hour away by car or scooter, and then, in many cases, an additional boat ride is required.
The views from the main streets in Kuta. It’s still a relatively sleepy place compared to the bustle of south Bali.
The main beach at Kuta where there’s no surf break to speak of.
I went to the closest spot that had beginner/intermediate waves, Tanjun Aan. It was about a 20 minute scooter ride away. Once there you took a boat taxi out to the reef. It had a really nice, long reef ride, but it was really crowded. I’d count 6-7 people on most waves. So I decided not to head out. I knew I had two weeks at Ekas coming up, and only really two days of surfing in the Kuta area. Little did I know that there would be some similar crowed challenges at Ekas.
A few people surfing at Tanjun Aan at lower tide. High tide is when the surf got better and the crowds came out.
The beach itself at Tanjun Aan is really nice.
The road from Kuta was recently paved. It’s a multi-lane highway with practictly no traffic. I doubt it will be that way 5 years from now. This area really seems to be growing.
I had a large studio guesthouse room a short scooter ride from the main streets of Kuta.
Surfing at Ekas
Four years ago the small village of Ekas had a couple hundred people, no electricity, no paved roads and no running water (it had to be shipped in via water trucks). But it did have two world class surf spots, Ekas Outside for advanced surfing and Ekas Inside for intermediate surfing. Also, when Inside was cranking, a nice long beach break developed nearby.
Slowly, the word got out and the people started coming. Then, three years ago the power lines came in with electricity. Last year a paved road came in from Kuta. Next year the water pipes into the village should be finished. And now this formally semi-secret surf spot can get pretty crowded during the peak season of July and August. There were days when Ekas Inside, a spot that can comfortably fit 10-12 people, had over 40 people of various skill levels. Many people would take the two hour drive/boat trip from Kuta, or the 1 hour scooter ride. There were multiple accounts of boards breaking from people running into each other when I was there.
I spent two weeks in Ekas. The first week Inside was incredibly crowded. Luckily it was big enough that the beach break was going off and I had a lot of fun there with only a few other people in the water. The second week, as the swells died a bit, Ekas Inside got much less crowded and I got to have more fun at the main site.
A part of the small village of Ekas. Funnily enough, most of the houses have been rebuilt in the past couple of years as more tourist money is trickling in.
The really nice walk down to the beach.
A look at the shore break in front and Ekas Inside out in the distance. This was during high tide, when there wasn’t much surf. Both places are best at low tide.
Here’s nice video some of the left breaking waves at Ekas Inside. This was low season and there was still a decent crowd. It was worse when I was there.
I stayed at Ekas Surf Resort which was owned and run by Dave and Melissa, two retired South Africans. Dave was a competitive surfer when he was younger and first came to Ekas on a surf trip 20 years ago. The place was really comfortable and the staff provide incredible service.
They even put together this really nice promotional video (and that might actually be Dave surfing on the SUP in the video):
While the surfing was great at Ekas, it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable for my skill level as some of the other places I’ve been to. And with the increasing crowds discovering this place, I probably won’t return here. So when I dream of Indonesian waves in the future, it will still be the wonderful longboard wave I experienece at Batu Karas in Java: https://theperennialpilgrim.com/a-taste-of-java
Diving at Tanjung Ringgit
The first weekend I was there the swells got well over 10 feet at Ekas Inside, which was the largest in 4 years, and even the beach break became too big and chopped out to surf cleanly. Luckily, I had the option of going diving for a day. Tanjung Ringgit is an area less than an hour from Ekas that has 16 dives sites that were only discovered two years ago. Dave, from Ekas Surf Resort, was actually part of the team that helped find these sites. His good friends own Blue Marlin, which he said is the largest dive operator in Indonesia, and they now run daily dives to these new sites. I did 3 dives there. There was nothing earth shattering about the sites I saw, and the visibility was below normal the day we went, but they were clean, healthy, beautiful, and there were no other divers nearby.
As you can see by these videos, the coolest part of these dives were the small critters.
A clown fish jealously guards its sea anemone territory.
Boxfish are one of the coolest looking fish.
A tiny, colorfull shrimp with huge antenna.
A tiny ribbon eel scooting amongst the coral.
An octopus hiding quietly under a rock.
Nudibranches are tiny, extremely colorful sea slugs. Every macro diver loves getting pictures of these little critters.
A brightly colored pufferfish; maybe it lost a paintball fight.
You can see just the back part of a tiny catshark hiding under a rock.
Scorpionfish are wonderfully ugly, misshapen creatures. As you can see when they are still, they can really blend into the coral background.
It’s fascinating how these little guys keep their shape.
Diving over this unique coral was like flying over a remote, snow covered, arctic forest.
Some healthy coral shots.