Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

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zingomar
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Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by zingomar » Wed Nov 27, 2013 9:29 pm

This ebook is a good read and gives a day by day view of what a surf charter trip is like and some of the spots

A Surfing Adventure in the Mentawai Islands


On Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/A-Surfing-Adventu ... ai+islands

You can read a sample and get a taste of it for free.

zingomar
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by zingomar » Thu Nov 28, 2013 6:43 pm

a few snippets from the book
Surfing the majestic HTs, one of the world’s most perfect and photogenic surf breaks, is akin to being seduced by a beautiful, scantily clad vampire temptress. You are drawn in by her seductive curves and allure, despite knowing all is not as it seems. Then just as you look deep into her eyes and her lips pout for a first kiss, she draws back her lips and bares her teeth.
Of course, in truth, the surf break has no malice or evil intent. She is more a sculptress than temptress who, for centuries, has been impassively carving exquisite liquid artwork awaiting an appreciative audience. It just so happens that her tools of trade are razor sharp.
After endlessly repeating her outdoor exhibition through the ages, largely ignored by local villagers, finally in 1990 her talent was understood when Lance Knight, a Mentawai surfing pioneer, rode into the bay with a local fisherman in a dugout canoe. He watched awestruck as liquid mounds rose up out of the ocean into cobra hooded peaks and spilled over in elliptical blue arcs that ran down the reef towards him. He had discovered every surfer’s fantasy wave. Lance sampled her works in private for weeks on his own, living in the small village in the palm line cove.

and
................leaned down from the upper deck to give some words of advice,

“There’s some huge sets coming through boys, you had better get your survival skills ready”.
That was enough for some of the tour members. They pulled their cameras out of their bags ready to record the drama and left their boards untouched. I quietly asked him what he meant by “survival skills”. He laid out a few hints,

“Don’t catch the first waves of the set, you’ll get slammed by the rest if you blow it. If you wipe out just swim for the horizon as fast as you can – don’t pull your board in first, you’ll waste precious seconds that could help you escape the next wave”.

After that exchange, the mood of those determined to try to catch a few of these monsters took on the solemn tension of soldiers preparing for battle.
(reproduced with permission from the author).
Last edited by zingomar on Sun Dec 01, 2013 12:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

andy2476
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by andy2476 » Thu Nov 28, 2013 6:53 pm

Wow. Its been a while. The kookocracey on all it's sad flabby glory
Drailed wrote:
#goteamiggy

zingomar
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by zingomar » Thu Nov 28, 2013 10:41 pm

A bit of flab, yep, but definitely not sad. Best 10 days surfing ever.

Sad is stuck on the couch watching TV getting old.

carpetman
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by carpetman » Fri Nov 29, 2013 9:21 am

10 days! Ha, thats classic.

andy2476
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by andy2476 » Fri Nov 29, 2013 10:33 am

share the stoke bra
Drailed wrote:
#goteamiggy

Nick Carroll
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by Nick Carroll » Fri Nov 29, 2013 1:03 pm

...living in the idyllic village in the cove, where one in every six children died of malaria.

zingomar
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by zingomar » Fri Nov 29, 2013 10:35 pm

idyllic ............. no longer, now read "small"

rmb
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by rmb » Sat Nov 30, 2013 6:04 pm

"Few of the descriptions of the pleasures of hunting surf and riding waves are bettered elsewhere in literature."

Really??

Indo dreaming
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Re: Mentawai surf charter trip diary - good read

Post by Indo dreaming » Sat Nov 30, 2013 10:09 pm

I cringe every time i read the story of Lance knight and Martin daly and Katiet (HT,s) do people actually really believe that Lance was the first guy to surf HT,s and by chance Martin happens to come around the corner in the same period.

Hello Nias was surfed as early as 1975, 15 years earlier than the lance at HTs story was meant to have happened 1990, do people really think that surfers didn't look at a map or think okay look what we have here on Nias, perhaps there could be similar waves in all these other offshore islands, off course surfers being surfers went looking and searching and where would the first place surfers would go look? at the end of islands the obvious areas, sure it would have been a lot harder to get out there than it is now, but there was still fishing boats plodding the waters.

Truth is we may never really know who was the first to surf places like HTs because after what happened at places like Nias, im sure surfers were very secretive.

I also asked a local guy who has worked on many charter boats who says his family is from Katiet area, what he thought? was lance really the first surfer to surf HT's and he just laughed at me and said off course not there was many surfers long before him that came to the village.

BTW. not surf related but dutch/german missionaries also come through the whole offshore sumatran island chain, protestant as far back as 1889 and catholics in the 1950s, apparently the dutch were also quite active in the offshore islands i think involved with logging during there rule of indo, you can even see the remains of roads where there is no roads today in places like out the back of macaronis, when i say roads there is no chance of even getting a motorbike on them now as there is its thick jungle even huge trees where the road was but you can see the built up road (like a reverse cutting), some villages i have also visited also have dutch and german graves for some reason the villages always want to show you.

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