Surfing has been known in Bali since at least the 1930s.
Perhaps the first person to ‘discover’ Indonesia’s surfing potential was the American photographer, Bob Koke, who travelled from Singapore to Bali by steamship in 1936, accompanied by Louise Garrett, the wife of Hollywood screenwriter, Oliver H.P. Garrett (A Farewell To Arms, Duel In The Sun). Bob Koke had coached tennis at the Garrett’s Beverly Hills estate where he may have heard about Bali from Charlie Chaplin who had visited the island paradise in 1932. The couple married and opened a small hotel on Kuta Beach, but their attempts to establish a surf resort were frustrated by WW2 and the Japanese invasion in 1942. Before leaving, he buried his two wooden Hawaiian surfboards in the sand.
Bob Koke had a few Balinese surfing students who would qualify as the very first Balinese surfers. One of these men was Toko Betawi, otherwise known as Liu Shun-shui. Long before Kuta developed as a tourist destination, it was a sleepy fishing village.
