This year is a La Niña year, so Indonesia has a lot of rain. La Niña means that the water temperature on the Indonesian side is high, and the water temperature off the coast of Peru across the Pacific Ocean is low. In the more famous El Niño, the Indonesian side's water temperature is opposite to that of Peru, and the Indonesian side is cooler. During La Niña, the Indonesian side's water temperature is higher, so more water vapour is generated, and more rainfall occurs. In other parts of the world, we need to predict that this year will be La Niña, so maybe it will be cold, maybe it will be hot, maybe there will be more disasters, and so on. Indonesia is affected directly, not indirectly, so it's simple and straightforward: during La Niña, the water temperature is higher, and more rain.
That's one of the reasons why it still rains every day even though it's almost mid-February. During the rainy season, the wind often blows from the west in Bali and the wind direction in Canggu, where I live, is not very good for surfing. That's why I didn't surf much last week. My kids have been surfing since they were little, so it feels strange not to surf for a couple of days.
The rainy season's westerly winds weakened at the weekend, but still, the conditions were not that perfect, so we went to a bit mellow point called Oldmansw. Oldmans is located between Batu Bolong and Eco Beach, and the quality of the waves is right between the mellow Batu Bolong and the shortboard friendly Echo Beach. Oldmans is perfect choise as this sport is good for both longboarding and shortboarding. My eldest son only wants to longboard these days.
My second son uses a fishboard when he surfs here. Yesterday he had a great time on it.
Incidentally, I think the name Oldmans comes from the fact that this place used to be full of old surfers. Pete, Patrick and Dave are all part of the Oldmans crew, but Pete is the only one who comes to surf every day now. Maybe the name will change soon, because now it's all Russian girls riding around on longboards and Russian surf schools. Some people call Batu Bolong surf spot "Oldmans", which is quite confusing, especially since the club "Oldmans" was established a few years ago in front of Batu Bolong beach.
10 years ago this point was called "Hinako" or something like that. I guess it's just the way of the times. Incidentally, Oldmans Cafe's predecessor was Organic Makang, a restaurant specialising in organic food, but the concept was ten years too early; once Organic Makang became Oldmans, it started to flourish. The concept was born 10 years earlier.