Part of the joy of traveling is in the planning. Gathering data, studying maps, reading blogs and scouring Google Earth is a labor of love. Technology has become a huge advantage for finding unsurfed locations. But no matter how many hours we spend researching, it will never prepare us for the euphoric moment when we are in the shade of an exotic tree, surfed out and watching an empty wave spin across the reef.
Our SurfEXPLORE group shares the burden of collecting data for our adventures. On this excursion to the Pacific side of Indonesia we were particularly blessed. We made two key contacts before our arrival. First was with a local travel blog writer and trekking guide named Charles. The other was the daughter of a local government official, named Sallo. They are both enthusiastic about the possibility of surf tourism for their area and they were essential for making our trip a smashing success. They worked together to provide us with beds at a local's house, food, petrol and a Toyota Hilux 4x4 with huge mud tires.
The culture of the locals dates back tens of thousands of years, long before the arrival of European missionaries in the 1850s. Their Papuan faces bear resemblance to the Aboriginal people of Australia and Melanesia. At first glance they appear fierce and intimidating, but within moments they transformed with a smile or a wave to the happy, friendly and gentle nature of their true identities. The region was claimed by the Netherlands in the 19th Century and then was annexed by Indonesia under questionable circumstances during the Sukarno era of the 1960s. There have been a few separatist uprisings with only minor success, but resulting in "Special Autonomy" status granted by Jakarta in 2001.
We sensed that autonomy on every street corner -- if the Indonesian Government were to pack up and leave tomorrow, we reckon they would barely notice. Their resources are abundant. Natural gas, oil production, lumber and mining industries stoke a thriving economy. Durian, rambutan and bananas are virtually falling off the trees and the only thing outnumbering fruit sellers are the number of Christian churches of many interpretations of Christianity. Morality is dominated by a "Gospel Law" which prohibits drinking and selling alcohol. This being Indonesia, we were able to find one store that sold black market Bintang beer at an expensive price of 8000,000 rupiah ($80 USD) for 24 cans. Fish, rice and vegetables were plentiful along with prawns and breadfruit. The locals were proud to serve us their local favorite -- a starchy paste made from the pith of the Sago Palm. While rather bland and tasteless, it has the appearance and consistency of mucus. So thankfully it never graced my plate!
We enjoyed our stay with the family of a handful of local surfers. It was a modest tin-roofed shack in front of a picturesque lefthander. The wave is shadowed from swell but enjoyed a near-constant offshore northwest wind and a flawless, peeling, 150-meter wall. Most days it was lucky to reach shoulder-high on the incoming tide but it was their beloved playground and they have established a modest little surf camp. They share five beat-up surfboards provided by Sallo. All of the locals first learned "Wave Surfing" with planks of local wood, and a few of them still prefer wood to fiberglass. Their approach to surfing is uninfluenced by modern, frenetic moves of surf videos or magazines, since before us only one foreign surfer had ever visited their waves. It is a pure function of enjoyment, sliding across long walls in the nude or bikini underwear. Their styles are dominated by smiles not maneuvers.
The other waves we tried in this vast area were a pleasant surprise for their consistent size and diversity. We were able to reach most of our researched waypoints from Google Earth with the muscle of the 4x4 and a GPS app for the iPad, which was a great asset for navigation. The few exceptions were when we came upon washed out bridges or Jurassic-size jungle trees fallen across the road halting all traffic other than motorbikes. We found reefs, points, and beachbreaks, all with no one surfing. In the end we realized with some irony that the best spots we surfed were the closest and most accessible to our home base.
Our go-to spot was a punchy and powerful righthand reef swell magnet. It's local name "Pinto Angin" (Gate of the Winds) was appropriate because it required constant monitoring to score it with clean offshore conditions. There were multiple takeoff spots and the shorter 10- to 12-second period peaky swells of this area of Indonesia kept us guessing and paddling. The walls were high-performance and the inside bowl offered up some hollow tunnels over concrete reef not for the faint of heart.
There was a sister left across the bay from Pinto Angin. It had a more defined takeoff zone, which zipped along a short, draining reef and detonated onto an angry dry section. If the wind failed our two reefbreaks then we made the 30-minute trip to a local village up the coast. The beachbreak there seemed to block the wind and face a favorable angle, throwing some hollow sections. The best sandbank was bookmarked by a tree swing, usually with 30 local children who came out to watch in droves and gave our surfing the same enthusiastic cheers as a decent football match.
The surfEXPLORE group extends a special "Makasih Banyak" to Charles Roring and Sallo for their invaluable help and to our two main guides Olaf and Japeth, who kept our vehicle safe and made proper introductions to the intrigued locals.
