#indo trip

This is our first in a line of articles about places we have visited and surfed and or body surfed/handboarded. To start it we are going to take a trip down memory lane to a 2003 trip i took to Nias in sumtra with my brother. It was an amazing trip with a lot to talk about, as we stayed there for over amonth so I have alot to go through. This is the first installment of that "EPIC TRIP".It  more a quick overview to get you aquanted with Nias Island. From then on I will take us right from the inception of the trip through to the end.

Lagundri Bay, Nias Island, Sumatra

This is one of the best places I have personally ever surfed and bodysurfed/hand boarded. Again not for the faint hearted. this little Indian ocean gem Is a world class right hander among the land of lefts. If you can stomach the 2day overland/sea shit fest to try get to Nias (a little shorter but 100% more live threatening by air. Think a plane held together with duct tape, you will start to get the idea) granted I made the trip in mid 2003 so things may have changed ,but I doubt it. There is civil war to the north in Ache and a not very well put together transport system to make getting there an absolute nightmare.

Now! saying all this, once you are finally there it is a magical place to visit and I mean that literally. There are very few places in the world with kind of untouched beauty. So barring the very real threat of dengue fever, drowning, rogue waves ; think the 2004 tsunami that wiped part of this small island out and very many more unforeseen (or seen) dangers . This place is without doubt one of the best surf trips you are ever likely to do. almost a Mecca trip for any serious waterman.

Perfect spitting barrels crystal clear water and yes you guessed it completely un-crowded. That's what you get from travelling through hell to get there. perfect untouched reef this place is what surf wet dreams are made of. Me and my brother got 20 straight days of overhead perfection some days so surfed out all we could do was sit in our hammocks and watch. Body surfing without a board here is ill advised. In order to get out to the break proper you have to make you way over the reef and a perfect timed jump into the ocean between sets, through what the locals call the " keyhole" miss queue and you land on the reef! Once you are out there its one wave after the other take your pick. Getting back in to dry land is of course another story all together , be it surfing or Handboarding. It's cheap and beautiful but like I said the running the gauntlet has its perils

This article is courtesy of Sufline (check out the entire log) and of course Twiggy and camerawoman aka twiggys girlfriend. Fellow saffa blaises a trail into rural  Indo. Checking out and reading this sent me quickly down memory lane from a trip me and my brother  to a very similar selection of spots around Sumatra (i stand corrected but i think the biggest of the Indonesian archipeligo). Like Twiggy, I am much more inclined to go looking for some uncrowded gems than to travel all that way to sit in the line up with 50 other expat dudes. Our trip took two days of dangerous 12hr taxi rides sitting on the back of motorcycles and even more treacherous Ferry rides, if i remember correctly Twiggies boat sounds like a luxury to what we took and I am not entirely sure how it managed to stay afloat.  It was all worth it when we got a month of perfect barrell spitting right hander. It was a trip never to forget! I am not going to say trip of a life time because there are plenty more to come!