Signs.

Signs.
Sometimes they are physical signs, like STOP or YIELD.
Sometimes they are from the Universe. Though they arent written out for you, but they are there - and when you hear them loud and clear, DO NOT ignore them. When you do, you end up with broken boards....

Sign #1: UP at 4:45am with a bad back from driving on the moto, shortboarding, and crunches (yes, crunches, kill me. ive added them to my afternoon yoga routine in an attempt to get rid of this goddamn belly). decide to do some yoga for an hour.

Sign #2: After yoga, Bali Belly kicks in. I spend the next hour back and forth from the bathroom.

Sign #3: Instant Cappuccino consumed, boards packed up, sunscreen on...we pull out for surf. We get down the street and Meesh realizes sthat she forgot her earplugs. The water is dirty in Indonesia, and she is prone to ear infections -- so they are ESSENTIAL. We turn around...

Sign #4: Meesh cant find her earplugs. Shes turned our room upside down and they are nowhere to be found. I finally come in to help with the search and we find them Okay, lets try this again....

Sign #5: We get a third of the way to Areguling and the bike begins to sputter. We are pretty sure that we have enough petrol, but we roll back down the hill to a house and buy one bottle. Give it another go, and sure enough, it wasnt petrol. Its the bike. We puttputtputt our way back to town and Meesh brings the bike back. I run to the bathroom....

Sign #6: We exchange the bike for a new and improved moto. Boards loaded, ready to go, but now the tide is shit. Fuck it -- lets have some breakfast. Enjoy a lovely breakfast and then we try for a third time.....

This time we make it 2/3 of the way there....some of the road isnt paved. Sure enough, we hit some mud -- too much front break, and we go down. It was more of a slide than a crash. We both made it away with no bruises, no gashes, and actually not even a speck of mud or dirt on our clothing. BUT, our boards took a hit. A decent wound in Meeshs brand new board, and a HUGE crunch into mine. Bloody hell. We deserved it really...we should have surrendered our efforts after the 3rd sign, but we are both so pigheaded we just pushed on. We both decided that surfing was a bad idea, this is how Mishka put it:

"At this rate, if we go surfing, I will probably fuck up my shoulder and not be able to swim or paddle. And then you will have one of your panic attacks which will lead to a heartattack and youll drown and I wont be able to save us. Then we get eaten by sharks."

We laughed. And laughed some more. What else can you do? And it could have been much worse. I agreed. Lets go home. We stop at a shop of a friend of Mish, and he listens to our story and assess the damage. A ding like the one I have on my board would cost atleast 75bucks to fix in the states. To fix both of our boards....60,000rupiah. Thats 6bucks. And Meesh says that they do great work. Even better...it will be ready later this afternoon so we could perhaps catch a sunset surf. Atleast by then the roads will be dry...... Until then, we pass the time without surf, suffering our punishment for not heading the signs sent to us.....