Traveling to the other side of the world can be grueling, especially as we get older.
That’s why a quarter of the way into our eighteen-hour flight from Los Angeles to Singapore, en route to surfing’s most perfect locale, I was hugely reminded of just how grueling lengthy travel can be. Something I ate at the airport wasn’t sitting right, and the smell of the prawn breakfast served on board made me make expert use of the sick bags for the remainder of that eternal-feeling flight.
“I don’t know if I’m cut out for this any more,” I thought to myself. “Is it even worth it?”
We boarded our next flight to Jakarta, then another to Padang, then another hour in the car until I finally just laid flat. Gratitude took over for being surrounded by my dear friends, who were crucial in helping me back to health along the forty-plus hour travel ordeal.
We finally got to the hotel in Padang, where the seven of us converged for one day before we continued on the next leg of our journey - a four-hour ferry transfer out to the island oasis of the Playgrounds area in the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia.
Along with me were a handful of my favorite surfers, as well as the most artistic lensman I’ve ever had the experience of working with.
The first friend is Kassia Meador. Kass was my childhood idol and has been a dear friend since I was fourteen. She’s the trailblazer, responsible for infusing a female aesthetic into modern longboarding as one of the first female pro free surfers. She and I have been hosting surf retreats together for the last five years, and this particular surf trip was a prelude to a twenty-two day stretch of hosting other surfers for their own Mentawai dreams.
The next friend is Karina Rozunko. Kini is at the top of the game when it comes to riding a log. She’s got the switch foot down, her technique on the nose is bar none, and her childhood gymnastics background gives her a posturing that is ballet-like, even when she’s executing critical maneuvers. She’s uniquely herself in and out of the water.
Next is Lola Mignot. Lolita is the ever-worldly wonder woman whom we’ve all known since she started traveling on her own with her longboard at age thirteen. She studied Kassia’s technique early on in her surfing — one can see the influence, although she spices it up with her own French-Mexican flare — and loves to put her board on rail.
Next is the amazing Makala Smith. If you want to study turns on a longboard, look no further than Makala. Her positioning and courage to push hard into a log is world-class. She and her partner Andy Nieblas have been coaching on our retreats, along with Kassia and I, for many years, and Makala’s got a knack for explaining technique in ways that helps surfers of all levels improve.
Also on board for this trip is Andy Nieblas. Andy is a surf god, his creativity on a log is unmatched. He’s lost many contests because judges (without instant replay) were unable to comprehend what they’d just witnessed. He’s a throwback to the 60’s and 70’s, a single-fin minded, soul-arching tube hound who clearly has a close relationship with wave speak. He is often the only male around our surf retreats, and his presence brings both joy and celebration. On this particular surf trip, he was no different. Andy was our good vibes leader each and every day.
Also on board is Ezequiel Rivero who is an Argentinian native who now lives in Costa Rica. Ez appears as a simple human on land, but once you get a camera in his hand, his creative mind goes wild. His photographic approach often finds him with a film camera strapped to him, and another digital camera in his hands, set to slow-shutter mediums that, while tricky to shoot, offer unique looks into our well-photographed sport and lifestyle of riding waves.
We arrived at Botik Resort with the cosmic stoke I am sure every surfer feels when they finally complete the extensive travel to a far off archipelago. Admiring the vibrance around us which very few places in the world can boast, Botik is an auric color bath. The air here is as fresh as it gets with the small islands gleaming with coconut trees and soft white sand.
Inigo and his wife Debbie are the new owners and operators of Botik Resort, nestled on the north side of one of the tiniest islands in the Playground area of the Mentawais. There is no surf break on the island, but with a quick five or ten minute commute via boat, there are over ten world class waves to enjoy. Travel a little further, and there are even more dreamy set ups throughout the Mentawais.
Ini and Debbie barely survived the Covid lockdown. Back then, they had just acquired the resort when suddenly and unexpectedly, the whole world shut down just as their high surf season started. With limited funds and zero tourism, they ate fish provided by Ini’s superb freediving skills, while Debbie harvested any edible food found growing on the islands. Needless to say, that food was very scarce.
But they persevered, and now, with the return of surf tourism, their business is growing. On this trip their entire staff opened their hearts to us. Botik is one of the few small, boutique resorts in the area with four bungalows to house surfers while they live out their dreams in this surf paradise.
By employing the local women and men from the neighboring, indigenous-populated islands, there’s a sense of gratitude from everyone who works at Botik. Fun prevails, especially if there’s a birthday to be celebrated. A Mentawai tradition for a birthday involves smashing an egg on the celebrant’s head, followed by handfuls of flour to the face and hair, including lots of uproarious laughter and limbo dance-offs. There were a couple of these birthday celebrations while we were on the island. The Mentawans really know how to party!
Kassia had spent time at this resort before and had been raving about the longboarding waves in the area. Before I departed for the islands I thought, “If I am going all the way to the Mentawais, I don’t want to log, I want to ride boards built for good waves!” So I neglected the sage advice to bring a noserider. That was a mistake. Indeed, the Playgrounds area is scattered with exceptional logging waves when the swell isn’t pumping. I made the most of my surf egg, a 7’11” named Gladys that held her own in the small longboard waves as well as when the waves got overhead. But it was a show to watch my group of friends put on a log clinic every day.
Backside nose riding has always been a weak point in my surfing. The balance and weight distribution between the feet is completely different to frontside nose riding, and it's very difficult to keep the board from slipping out from under the feet and away from the wave. Not so for Karina. She amazed me as she thrived on the backside perch. She was riding a board that she had made by Thomas Bexon nearly a decade ago. She sold it, then regretted it. So a few years later she bought it back, knowing magic boards aren’t boards you sell.
By the second day we were already steady into the post-surf card games that became ritualistic. Rounds of ‘shithead’ left us laughing as Lola kept reminding everyone to keep paying attention. She’s a real game nerd, and loves when everyone is intently focused on the hand at play. We all had begun to have constellations of mosquito and sand flea bites, something one needs to be well prepared for. It was the biggest challenge not to itch. (Months later, I still have scars on my feet from where I couldn’t resist. The bites turned into welts, which fester every day in the maximum humidity plus six hours or more a day in the ocean.)
By day four, I was hungry to get some ‘real’ waves. I had kept my new Ryan Burch shaped Pickle Fork on the boat for a few sessions in the hopes we’d arrive at a wave that had some tubes. Finally one evening we left the 4Bob log land, and puttered up the reefs to Pistols which is a slabby, short tubing right.
My shortboard friends with whom I had been trying to link up with were out — Caity Simmers, who had just won her first world title, along with Caroline Marks, who had just won the gold medal, plus Molly Picklum, and Sierra Kerr. It was as star-studded a lineup as it gets. Without doing my usual ‘sit and watch what it's doing’, I instead rushed out there with my double pointed nose board.
I showed Caity my fresh stick. She's a Pickle Fork lover too, but the other girls looked at the board like, ‘that thing looks weird.’ I asked them how the waves were and they said wonky and not very good. Instead of warming up on the inside with a smaller wave which is usually the smart thing to do on a new board, I waited in line for a set wave. Molly called me in. I made it halfway down the face when a wonky bump caught the nose and sent me diving for pearls. Immediately after I hit the water, my fin hit the bottom of my foot. Lesson learned, and quickly.
I paddled back to the boat, tail between my legs, praying that I didn’t just make a trip-ending mistake. The cut didn’t need stitches. I was lucky, but it was undoubtedly going to require attention for the rest of my trip. Uncle Andy cleaned the gash and patched me up, while Kassia reminded me to take extra care of wounds when inhabiting islands such as these, as infections can get out of hand quickly. Eze was already starting to deal with this reality since he had learned within the first few days how easy it is to kick the shallow reef when shooting in water. The reef there has a lot of bacteria, so a lime-scrub is a must, as well as constant care.
Every day is different in the Mentawais. There’s no trusting the radar maps and the wind forecasts. It's a ‘wake up and see’ and a ‘be ready for it to change on a dime’ kind of place. Storms can move in very quickly. Just one year prior, one of Ini’s best friends got caught in a torrential storm on their panga boat. Unfortunately, they had run out of gas and drifted out to sea. Two days later they were lucky to be found alive out in the middle of nowhere by one of the search teams. There’s a number of X-factors in the Ments. Storms are certainly one of them.
After a day out of the water because of my cut, I wanted to test the Tegaderm and see if the waterproof sheathing would allow me to surf and keep the cut dry. I could barely walk on land, because it's all sand on the island, and although I have high arches where the cut was, the pressure on my foot was unbearable. But on a surfboard, it was a different story! With a piece of gauze over the cut, and Tegaderm wrapping a good portion of my foot, the cut stayed dry. I stood up on my first wave, expecting shooting pain, but I was pain free! My high arches played in my favor. The waves were perfect and had some size. They weren't scary big, but they offered some nice weightless drops and fun turn sections. Kassia charged it on her leashless longboard, impressively nose riding and zooming across the big overhead waves. Andy put on a show on his backhand, riding his downrail 70’s style singlefin. I was in heaven, crying tears of joy that I was able to surf again without pain and feeling spared, but I reminded myself always to be patient and to give time for at least the mental warmup.
The last day of our trip before our retreats started was the most memorable when everyone got their best waves. There was finally a long period pumping swell in the water with light winds. We started the day at 4Bobs where the longboarders went to town, perching on overhead pitching waves.
I watched up close as Makala took off on a set wave, took six steps straight to the nose in a wildly steep, tall section, and stuck the noseride. Then she backpedaled all the way to the tail, and completed the best carving turn on a log I’ve ever witnessed.
As it goes, the cameras weren’t there at the turning moment, but the image lives forever in my mind.
Soon after, Kassia caught her set wave of the session, and perched into the most critical hang 10 I’ve ever seen her do. As the wave sucked out, she went to walk back but the board elevator-dropped under her, the rail went into the wave and immediately corked right back at her, nailing her hard in the shins. She, too, was lucky it wasn’t worse, and we all counted our blessings.
We went back to Botik to recharge for the afternoon session, but as I was taking my first bite of lunch, Ini excitedly came over to me. “I bet Bank Vaults is firing right now. The wind is right. Let's go!” Embracing the Mentawai weight-loss diet, I left my lunch for others to finish, and hopped straight back on the boat for another ten minute ride. We pulled up to the break, and I became instantly nervous. Huge spitting barrels were firing all right with an end section that looked angry and reefy. It reminded me of Sunset Beach, but shallow. That's a scary combo.
Ini immediately jumped in the water with his camera, not giving me any choice and putting me to the test to see if I actually wanted some juicy waves. I said a quick prayer and did a mental warmup, lathered my face in sunscreen, and paddled out to a lineup that only had three guys out, and only one of them was actually catching any waves. He was absolutely ruling.
Of course, it turned out to be Josh Kerr. After twenty minutes to get my bearings, I paddled for one that looked similar to what I’d seen Josh go on. I paddled as hard as I could on my 6’8, got halfway down the face and realized I could relax. I took my time on a slow bottom turn, went into a highline, feeling the rush of the intense wave beneath my feet. I kicked out knowing I probably could’ve gotten tubed if I took a different line. “Next wave”, I told myself.
As I got back to the lineup, the wind switched to hard side-shores up the face, and immediately it felt next-level sketchy. I paddled back to the boat and Ini smiled, “Ebay’s going to be on now.” We jammed back to Botik to pick up the rest of the team, and scurried back around the next island to one of the most favorite sessions of my life.
I had surfed Ebay once before, ten years prior on a boat trip, and lucked into the best backhand tube I’d ever ridden. I had dreamed about returning to that fickle wave ever since. It needs a specific direction, tide, period, and wind to even start breaking. As we pulled closer to the actual break, we saw there were no other boats at the lineup, just one leaving. It turned out to be one of Ini’s friends. He gave us a thumbs up and then motioned his arm in the universal tube sign over his head. We were flabbergasted. There wasn’t a single person in the lineup! How could this be? There was a glitch in the matrix for sure. For the next forty-five minutes, Andy, Kassia, and I traded off any and every wave that came through that lineup. As a long-period kind of place, it was set waves or nothing.
I watched Andy in his all-out elation, stroking into the most beautiful, perfect waves, single-fin soul arching off the bottom into the tubes. I’d always dreamed of seeing him surf waves like this. It wasn’t huge, but it had enough juice to keep the blood pumping hard. With each wave, I was working out how to stall harder and harder. It felt like bodysurfing on my bum, across waves with not a drop of water out of place. “This is the life!” I thought.
The three of us hooted in excitement, knowing we would all cherish this solo session forever. Eventually, more people paddled out and the wait for waves extended. After a few hours and after kissing the reef a few times, we paddled back to the boat, as surf stoked as I’ve ever been.
Our remaining days on the island were filled with more card games, over a hundred hours in the ocean with our retreat guests, another unforgettable session at Bank Vaults, and with lessons learned on how to be prepared and care for reef wounds, along with lots of laughs with the locals.
In the end, I reminded myself, “It’s always worth the grueling travel."
If you’re considering a Mentawai surf trip at a land camp, I recommend you bring the following: a dry bag for the boat, a dry case for any electronics which don’t like humidity, a well stocked medical kit including Tegaderm, gauze, a tourniquet, compression bandages, & Tepezcohuite (a Mexican tree bark powder that healed and saved an infected reef cut on my rib), plus an abundant supply of insect repellent, and back-up surf equipment! Yaahoooo!
Photos by: Ezequiel Rivero
