Pay $75 fee and surf in crowds of 20 surfers or
less…
Let’s ask: who wants to go the Mentawai?
All of you?
Maybe you want to go on one of those dazzling boats like
the Ratu
Motu where the monied surfer radios in his aprés
gin-and-tonics as he sails back in his tender to a mother vessel
skippered by a worldly cap who shows off his quiver of
Rollies and tells stories of being kidnapped by pirates in the
Amazon?
Or maybe you’re thrilled to be on a trad Indo sailer that’s slow
but eschews modern comforts for a more cosmic experience.
However you swing, the Mentawai islands, with its perfectly
foiled reef waves popularised by the Australian boat captain
Martin Daly in the nineties with movies for Rip Curl (The
Search, Tripping the Planet) and Quiksilver (No
Destination, The Hole, Young Guns), is as
much a rite of passage for surfers, maybe even more so, than the
North Shore.
So you sling your three thousand (minimum) at a good boat, add a
grand-and-a-half for any airfare and you wait for your turn in the
boat charter cycle. And maybe you’ve got a good skipper and surf
guide and you cut off your own slice of paradise, accumulating
memories you’ll still be talking about in a decade.
Or maybe you wind up surfing Lances Right, Macaronis and every
other name spot and you’re astonished to discover y’ain’t in
paradise but’ve arrived to some kind of overcrowded, surf
capitalist dystopia.
Sixty surfers… here?
But all that might be changing in August 2106, or so says the
English-language daily The Jakarta Post.
In a story headed, Surfers Charged a Little More for Extra Fun in
Mentawai, it reveals that the Mentawai Islands
regional administration issued a bylaw last year on the “management
of surfing excursions that stipulates, among other things, the
imposition of ‘surfing fees’ for both domestic and foreign
tourists… Under the bylaw, all foreign and local surfers
visiting Mentawai are required to pay Rp 1 million (US$75) and Rp
250,000, respectively, for a 15-day period.”
Seventy-five bucks ain’t nothing when you sling it onto the five
gees or whatever it is the trip costs. So what’s it get you?
Let’s examine.
“Such fees, for example, would give surfers a fair chance to
ride the most sought-after waves in the region, said Mentawai
Islands Tourism Agency head Desti Seminora.’Currently, many surfers
must compete against each other to secure surf spots on particular
beaches,’ she said. ‘By paying certain fees, surfers will be
guaranteed spots on the beach as our officers will allow a maximum
of 20 surfers to surf in a particular spot every morning and
afternoon.’
How’s it work? Wrist bands!
“Payments are to be made online, while identification wristbands
are to be collected at the provincial capital of Padang or
Mentawai. The new regulation is scheduled to take effect in August
after the regional administration completes supporting regulations
that detail fee collection procedures.”
Wrist bands and some kinda policing to keep numbers down?
You really think that’s going to happen?
You really think it’s going to work?
Non.
Will the levy still be charged?
Let’s do a little math: 7000 visitors multiplied by $75 gives
the Mentawai Islands regional administration an ongoing yearly
injection of $US525,000.
I think, yes!
Read the story here.
* (And what do you think of referring to the Mentawai Islands as
Mentawai, as is the custom in those parts, and not
Mentawais? Does it sound odd to you?)
