The wave is the same. The crowds are not. There’s something wonderful about the past, isn’t there? Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
The Surf Film Archive is on a mission. It’s a great mission, too. They’re taking old, lost footage from Australia and New Zealand’s lost surf films, restoring it, and putting it online. In this clip, Uluwatu takes center stage at a time when it was a lot different than it is now.
“This clip from Beyond Blazing Boards 1985 presents a beautiful window into Uluwatu 40 years ago and it’s not hard to see why we all fell in love with it,” the Archive wrote. “Some great surfing by first generation Balinese surfer Made Kasim and Aussie Simon Law.”
It’s a window back in time to the days that most surfers — were they not lucky enough to experience — yearn for. A simpler time with fewer people in the lineups. And although the past always looks better through the lens of the present, it’s tough to watch footage of Uluwatu now and think that 1985 wasn’t better. Has anyone figured out a time machine yet?
