BALI, INDONESIA, September 27, 2024 (Surfline, by Nick Carroll): Ulu Watu. The name triggers a deluge of images for surfers worldwide. Dream-like visions of long peeling lefts, trade-winds, sunsets. Images of Bali as Paradise, the ultimate escape. As one surfer we spoke to while researching this story told us: “It’s one of the holiest places on earth, and one of the most sacred surf spots on earth.” Embodying this sacredness, around .62 miles south of the Uluwatu main break, is the 1,000-year-old Uluwatu Mandala, the island’s most renowned Hindu temple and an enduring symbol of Bali’s ancient identity as the Island of the Gods. Yet Uluwatu’s literal meaning in English is “cliff edge”. And over the past five weeks, thanks to a massive, seemingly unannounced excavation of the cliff adjoining the temple, a new set of images have disrupted our collective vision of Bali: a shattered cliff line, rock debris cast into the ocean, discolored water filtering down through the surf zone.

The excavation is part of a US$5 million project overseen by the regional Badung government. It’s ostensibly designed to protect the Uluwatu temple from the risk of cliff collapse. Yet that very design — a raised seawall winding around the cliff base, topped by a road through the cliff and seemingly leading to nowhere — raises questions for anyone with Bali’s natural beauty at heart. A huge post-Covid tourism boom and a population blow-out in the island’s most tourism-affected region has brought many years of simmering growth to a head. And the Uluwatu cliff re-shaping may just be the beginning. The Uluwatu temple has been at risk for decades. A crack in the cliff extending landward of the temple was first detected in the early 20th century. Protective membranes employed to seal the crack from weathering haven’t proved to be any kind of permanent fix. That leaves the temple exposed to a sudden shift in load — on a cliff line that’s been steadily eroding for millennia, in a part of the world where earthquakes are a fact of life.

Much more at source.
https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/uluwatu-cliffs-edge/209791

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