In search of a good Beach

We spent a very busy week with Alison visiting a few new places around Bali including the east coast area of Amed. This is a relatively isolated area of coastline with gorgeous black sand beaches. Unfortunately we landed there during a 3 days of extreme stormy weather and the wind and waves were big almost the whole time we were there. We did get one day of not bad weather, but they lost power on the whole coast the day we arrived and never got it back. I had sorta planned on staying there for a couple of days after Alison left but with high winds, big waves and no power, it was just too hard for us. So we moved on to calmer pastures... Sanur.

Black sand beach in Amed

Before coming to Bali I had this impression that it was the land of gorgeous beaches. But in reality the beaches here have been pretty sucky. Even in places where we had fun, like the Gilis, the beaches have been coarse broken up pieces of coral and really shallow water or dirty with huge waves (both Kutas and Lovina). No fine sand beaches with clean swimmable ocean. Amed had the beaches but the weather was so bad we couldn't really enjoy it.

more black sand beaches

The gorgeous Amed coast

But finally in Sanur we found a nice clean beach, with easy access and a swimmable ocean, even if most of the tourists there were in there 50s and 60s. But it took us visiting 6 different towns to fine a halfway okay beach. I guess now I know, you don't visit Bali looking for world class beaches. Not that we didn't enjoy all of our ocean experience (after all it doesn't take much for someone from Montana to get their ocean fix on). But definitely different than expected.

fishing boats in Amed

yes, she gets to drink soda here

Seems only fair since I get to drink yummy microbrews