Night surfing does not mean looking at porn on the internet while your wife is asleep. It’s actual surfing… at night… dude.
Though not really recommended, especially for beginners, night surfing is a real thing. Some night surfing events utilize lighting and there are crowds of surfers and spectators on the beach to help out if something goes wrong. Check out this video of night surfing in Bali to see what I mean.
Another video, while better produced than the previous, is also a lot more annoying. Unless you like awful music and rich white people throwing up West Coast gang signs, that is. Just turn down the volume, skip the goofiness and check out some short clips of night surfing in Uluwatu, Bali. Why there are like 10x as many clips of DJs and drunk people as actual night surfing, I’ll never fathom. Just skip to 0.59 and then 1:30 of the video for the clips of lit up night surfing at Racetracks, one of the Bukit’s most legendary breaks.
I would totally discourage night surfing alone, however, and not just because sharks are more active at night. Surfing is dangerous enough. When you significantly diminish your most important sense for surfing – your sight – it just gets that much more risky. Night surfing, a bit like big wave surfing, is mostly a spectator sport.
Night surfing is also a known practice at Bali’s Keramas beach. Check out Australian pro surfer and two-time world champion Mick Fanning shredding under cover of darkness (sort of, there are still lights) here. It’s got better music and more surfing than the previous two videos, I promise. What can I say – I saved the best for last. And by best I mean this video, not that last one, although it was pretty good. The final clip is 7 minutes long and features Bruce Irons and Lee Wilson tearing up the night at Keramas.
Long live surf vampires.
Night surfing in Lebih, Bali. Pic: Jai Mansson (Flickr CC)
