Indo surf trip

May 20, 2011

I recently fulfilled a childhood dream by traveling on a surf trip to Indonesia. I remember being a young whipper snapper and watching hours and hours of surf footage and dreaming endlessly that my local break in Durban, South Africa was in fact the Indonesia that I saw on the surf movies. (Ah the delusions and dreams of a young surf rat) Then when I grew older and traveled the world, there were still a few places that I didn’t get to visit and Indonesia was one of them. So when a friend called and asked me if I wanted to go on a boat trip to the Mentawai Islands, the answer was a resounding “YES!”

WOW! What a freakin dream that place is. Paradise on earth. Every bit worth the ridiculous hours of flight time to get there. My travel route was LA – Taipei – Kuala Lumpur – Padang. With an overnight stay in Kuala Lumpur and an hour and a half drive to the harbor from the Padang airport, and a 10 hour sail from the harbor to the islands, the total travel time was over 2 days.

But man, was it worth it! The surf was insane and I got some of the best waves I’ve ever had in my life. To add to the ridiculous nature of this trip, we were cruising in serious style on the Indies Trader 4. I posted some photos in the photos section for you to check out.

Here’s an article on the trip from the surf photographer extraordinaire Dave Collyer:
mentawaisurfphotos.com

Here are some more photos of the trip:

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