Niki Herlina

In the water it wasn’t much different though, and Niki was constantly dealing with local guys hassling her. In our interview she told me that at some breaks, the local guys would essentially tell her she belongs in a brothel and not the surf. But, in classic Niki style, she’d brush it off with some witty comebacks and keep on surfing.

It took a lot of years for Niki to gain the respect she very well deserved in the water. While in some places, like the Bukit peninsula, the local crew were actually quite welcoming to Niki, it still took a very long time before she was treated as an equal in the water. But as I said earlier, for majority of her surfing life, she surfed every single day, often multiple times a day, which means she would go out when it was nearly flat, and when it was 15ft and pumping.

When I asked if this relentless dedication to surfing has turned it into a sort of ritual for her, her answer was simple and swift: she puts surfing at the center of her life and everything else follows. After moving to Bali and starting to surf, every job she’s ever taken has been based around how much she is able to surf. She has always refused to work a regular 9-5 because she wouldn’t be able to fit in a third surf with that schedule.

That sort of ritualistic practice pays off too. Over the years Niki has had a few big name sponsors like Reef, Roxy, and Oakley, as well has done very well in some surf contests in the past. On top of that, she is a sort of legend her in Bali and especially in the Bukit. Now, if you were to make the mistake of dropping in on Niki, you’ll have quite a few local guys coming to her aid to contend with.

Niki, as far as anyone can tell, is the 3rd ever female Indonesian surfer. She grew up in Java and came to Bali with the plan to stay for a week after graduating from university. During that week in 1999, Niki learned to surf for the first time and essentially never left after that. She has become one of the most dedicated surfers I have ever met, often surfing 3 times a day, everyday. But being one of the first ever female surfers didn’t come without plenty of adversity .

One of the first places she felt pushback for surfing actually came from her own family. At that time, and still to this day in some capacity, a common desire in Indonesian society is to have light skin, largely because dark skin historically indicated that you were a farmer and relatively poor because of it. When Niki’s mother saw how dark her skin had become after she really started surfing when she visited Niki in Bali, she wouldn’t allow Niki to come home. Her mother had then sent Niki a box of soaps and creams aimed at lightening her skin, and told her she couldn’t come home until she finished all the products. However, in typical Niki fashion, she simply never opened the box and told her mom that she doesn’t ever plan on stopping surfing and stuck to that ultimatum relentlessly. Eventually, her mom came around and let her daughter come visit again.

Niki told me of how even when the swell would get really big, she still made sure that she surfed at least once a day. As she would be heading down the cliff to go surf at Uluwatu when the sets were 10-15ft, all the local guys on the cliff would be genuinely worried for her safety telling her, “Niki don’t go out, you’re gonna die.”

But Niki is not someone easily deterred from what she wants and even though she might go out, get one wave and get completely pounded, she would still be out there. Because of this, Niki became a steady face you’d see in the water, regardless of how big it is. This dedication to her craft is really what helped to gain her the respect and notoriety that she has to this day.