Words and photos by Clarrie Bouma
Clarrie travelled on The Huey courtesy of The Perfect Wave

Is there a better way to celebrate your birthday than to get a group of friends together and take a ten day surf boat trip in Indonesia? This was the plan formulated by a group of Sandon Point locals. 

Our first stop of the trip was Asu, a small island off the west coast of Nias, where we got lucky scoring double overhead waves. Thankfully we had a couple of 3 to 5 foot warm up sessions on the lefthanders at Afulu and another unnamed right before having to come to grips with the more challenging bigger days at Asu.

The unnamed righthander

Afulu

One of the inevitable lessons to be learned when arriving at a new break like Asu when it has reasonable sized waves is to figure out the line up and especially the take off zone. This was even more challenging as the line up was empty when we arrived. Getting your head around the line up is especially relevant at Asu as it breaks reasonable close to the rocks that run the length of the wave. Get caught inside by a bomb set and there is a strong likelihood you’ll get a free geology lesson. Throw in the inevitable coral cuts from the reef and you have the full package of hazzards of surfing in Indonesia.

As there were no other surfers about when the boat arrived at Asu those lessons had to be learned by trial and error. Error probably won the day.

Asu sparkling

Matt Roodenrys at Asu

We ended up spending 3 days at Asu because the waves were pumping. Asu has a great calm anchorage just around the headland from the point where the left handers are found. You always appreciate a nice calm anchorage at night. Far better than the long overnight sessions in rough seas getting from one group of islands to another.

Asu in the rain

Bomb set at Asu

On our last day at Asu, one of our group, Chris MacEvoy was literally run over by the local punt delivering surfers from the small surf camp on the island to the break. That could have been a major drama but thankfully the only damage was a a coating of antifouling paint on the surfboard and a chewed up leggie, which was replaced by the owner of the surf camp along with a genuine apology. Hopefully a lesson learned by the young Indonesian driver that watching out for surfers paddling out is a good idea.

An hour or so away from Asu is another break called Bawa. It's a right which used to be far better before the 2004 earthquake. The earthquake lifted the reef and hence changed the nature of the wave. There are still some great barrels on offer on the inside but getting caught inside by the bomb sets is extremely likely and probably inevitable. The lineup was empty and well over double overhead on the outside when we arrived so an overnight run down to the Telos Islands looking for some of the magical barrels the breaks there have to offer seemed like a good idea.

The boat arrived at 5.00am and we were greeted with a fading swell. A couple of hours out at Mishos and another righthander sated the wave appetite. We had an afternoon relaxation session at Sooly's place (the owner of the Huey) where we also ran into Matthew Elks the author of 'Scum Valley', a book about the surfing culture around Bondi in the 1970’s. He kept us entertained with lots of interesting stories about smuggling hash in the 70’s.

Another overnight run got us to the Mentawis. We threw out a line and managed to nab good sized Spanish Mackerel which we had for diner as Sushi.

We scored Iceland at around 5 foot and next day surfed Telescopes at around 3 foot.

That was ten days of surfing so yet another overnight boat run saw us back in Padang and on the plane home.

There has been a lot of media coverage recently about the smoke haze covering Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore from fires used to clear the rainforest for palm oil plantations. It was exceptionally bad this year and certainly made it virtually impossible to get those blue sky line up shots that we all love to see. Hopefully the global outcry about this issue will be loud and long so the problem can be controlled.

That haze and the somewhat persistent rainy weather we experienced made photography difficult.

I could not write these words without heaping praise on the crew of the Huey. Chris the surf guide has twenty years experience running boats all around the Pacific. His knowledge of the local surf breaks is extensive and his desire to put the surfers into the best uncrowded waves is commendable. We only ran into one other charter boat during our ten day trip. Chris is a great person to boot. It was a pleasure to get to know him and the rest of the crew.

The rest of the crew were all locals and, typically for locals, were always happy and more than willing to do whatever was required to make our trip as enjoyable as possible. If only everyone in the world were as amenable at these guys. Probably the hardest working member of the crew was the cook Karule. We could not believe the exceptional quality of every meal he prepared for us.

Finally a word about the boat itself. It is a steel ex-Japanese patrol boat with great facilities. Throw in a fast speed boat (with a BIG 250 hp outboard) and a rubber duckie tender and getting from boat to break is a non event. On a couple of occasions we jumped into the speed boat to get to the next break a couple of hours before the Huey. What a great way to increase your surfing time, which is after all the main purpose of the trip.

A final big thanks to The Perfect Wave Surf Experience. As much as we all hate flying and transfers TPW made everything happen without a single hitch. Just what you want from your preferred surf travel company.