Bali - Kuta Beach

Our last day in Bali was spent on the beach.  In hindsight I would have liked more time to sit and watch the waves....guess that means we have to go back to Bali...

We walked along the beach until we spied two empty chairs...we haggled a bit about the cost for using them....(about $15 for the day) and parked ourselves.  This is pretty much the view I had all day.  There were many people of all ages surfing even right there by the beach.  As at Boracay, vendors came by to sell all manner of things - hats, sunglasses, towels, sarongs, and souvenirs. One man came and chatted with us for some time.  He was selling boys and arrows, but seemed just as interested in talking to us about where we were from and where we had been.  He had many interesting things to say about the various nationalities of people he had met on the beach.

Both of us went in for a swim.  I was unprepared for the strength of the surf.  For those who have experienced surf before you will likely nod your head wisely....it is SO powerful.  I thought the waves coming in would be the waves to watch for, but it was in fact the receding waves which were the scariest because they sucked me back out to the deeper water.  And as each wave broke, it took up huge amounts of sand, so that when I was finished with my little swim I was full of sand...every part of my bathing suit was full of sand.

 Bob is heading out for his swim.

From my chair I was able to watch (with the binoculars) both the surf at Kuta reef (where the experienced surfers go) and the action at the airport.  For a small island, there is an unbelievable number of planes! 

I tried taking a picture with my phone through one side of the binoculars with some success.

 Kuta reef waves in the background.  The vendor who stopped to talk to us said that the surf at the reef was 3.5 to 4.5 metres high, and the surf at the beach 1.5 to 2.5 metres.

 A plane arriving.  At most times when I looked at the airport there were either planes landing or planes waiting to take off, or both.  Pretty constantly.

As it got later in the evening the beach filled with people who were obviously there to watch the sunset.  Unlike our more familiar latitudes, here so close to the equator, the sun sets at about 6:30.  Then it gets dark pretty quickly.

A glorious end to the day.