Mentawai Location report: “The line-up’s full of American VALs, stern-faced Brazzos and distraught Aussies wondering what the hell happened to their sea of darkness!”

Still want to spend five-gees plus on that Mentawai vacay?

Mentawai trips, particularly on a boat, require forking out a lot of coin for a couple of weeks of bliss. It’s been a rite of passage for so many of us over the last two decades, but is it still worth it?

Read, The Mentawais Now Belong to the Kook, here. 

My trip to the Mentawais went like this.

Late May 2019. Arrive in Jakarta. Picked up from airport by air conditioned shuttle to four star hotel. There are riots downtown but we only see it on the tele at buffet breakfast. Same shuttle-flight-shuffle again from Jakarta to Padang.

A night on the tins at the hotel bar (Mercure). Cross paths with other western surfers in various states of transit. Coming, going, staying, waiting. All bobbing along our own Indo supply lines like marker lures down a river.

You get the feeling a switch could be flipped back in Jakarta at any minute and the warm bintangs and comfy hotel rooms would be replaced by rusty machetes and dank holding cells. Or worse. All I want to say to the locals is, yeah, I feel you, I get it, we suck. But I’m too fucken ignorant to learn Bahasa. Also it’s Ramadan so maybe they’s just hungry.

Contact with Indonesians, outside chauffers and service staff: zero. Antipathy seethes behind muted smiles.

I hear a few hectic stories from expat business owners of close calls with the law. Some of them too close. You get the feeling a switch could be flipped back in Jakarta at any minute and the warm bintangs and comfy hotel rooms would be replaced by rusty machetes and dank holding cells. Or worse. All I want to say to the locals is, yeah, I feel you, I get it, we suck. But I’m too fucken ignorant to learn Bahasa.

Also it’s Ramadan so maybe they’s just hungry.

Another shuttle bus arrives and it’s our turn to go. Glimpses of local life through blue tinted windows; an upturned nose on sight of the filthy Padang harbour water. Sanitary handwash at the ready. A quick stock up on Beng Bengs, Sampos and more tins before hitting the road. Or ocean. Whatever.

Dawn at Lance’s Lefts on the first morning. Metallic blue sea. Two-to-three feet of rolling swell. Endless blue skies.

And boats, boats, boats.

Every season there’s more boats. Sleek cats, regal cutters, dilapidated jalopies. There are old boats reincarnated, not seen for four or five years, stuck together with Quikrete and listing in the water like craned necks. There’s twin boats, booked out by big groups or teams of pros (one for the girls, one for the boys). Boats with sous chefs and helicopter pads. Boats that show up like apparitions on the horizon while you’re putting on your zinc then are already dropping anchor by the time you’re ready to paddle out.

Every season there’s more boats. Sleek cats, regal cutters, dilapidated jalopies. There are old boats reincarnated, not seen for four or five years, stuck together with Quikrete and listing in the water like craned necks. There’s twin boats, booked out by big groups or teams of pros (one for the girls, one for the boys). Boats with sous chefs and helicopter pads. Boats that show up like apparitions on the horizon while you’re putting on your zinc then are already dropping anchor by the time you’re ready to paddle out.

All up there’s eleven boats there that first day at Lance’s, counting ours. Plus, you have the land camps with their own tenders and speedboats. The line-up’s full frothing American VALs, stern-faced Brazzos, distraught Aussies wondering what the hell happened to their sea of darkness.

Even if they can’t paddle properly they’re all there to fuck. They’ve spent $5k+ for their slice of paradise and are ready to fight for it. One day at small Burger World I see an older Kiwi accidentally drop in on a Brazzo intermediate on a nothing wave. The Brazilian yells, old dude realises, pulls off. Instead of surfing down the point Brazzo also pulls off so he can continue yelling. A collective shrug in the line up, followed by an awkward stare to the horizon.

Each person’s supply line is different. KL or Jakarta. Land camp or boat. Six star or one. Doesn’t matter, we’re all ending up in the same spot. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a crowded line up at home that’s just been transported to a tropical location. Welcome to Paradise, now go to Hell.

You can get waves but it means having to up your hassle or your patience.

“You gotta be hated or frustrated,” was a maxim I heard/made up myself.

There’s still surprises to be had.

One day of twelve-foot plus HTs. Crowded, yes. But any set wave was yours if you really wanted it (I did not want it). The following day the swell eased and we snuck back around the island and scored half a day of pumping eight-foot Lance’s lefts to ourselves and a couple of land camp ring ins. More waves than you can poke a tender at.

The dream is still obtainable but you’ll need to fight harder for it.

Observations

Other than the surprise two-day swell we were pretty skunked for waves. That can happen anywhere and at anytime and I shouldn’t let it colour this piece too heavily. When the swell arrives the options increase exponentially, and the crowds thin right out.

It was genuinely heartwarming to see how quickly barriers dissolve during an emergency. One of my mates had a pretty serious injury on the reef that required immediate professional treatment. A quick whiz around the boats on our lineup found two Brazillian doctors, one who worked in an emergency ward in a Rio hospital, that were able to quickly treat and stitch the nasty wound. Unqualified support and good vibes all around. The minutiae of cultural differences we perpetuate in surfing are for the most part bullshit. And if it was back in the day my mate would have been fucked.

We paid for a photographer to come along and it was pretty cool but also quite confronting to get a big stick of photos and video of yourself back at the end of it. A couple of freeze frames for your insta but also a stark depiction of your various technical inadequacies.

On inadequacies: seeing XL HTs and similar waves on film and always thinking you could handle it. Seeing it in the flesh and realising you’re nowhere near ready. (Getting leggy wrapped around coral head in front of the Table didn’t help)

Recommendations

Go with your mates. I went with a group of nine legends from home and it was great. Take out the surfing and it’s still the trip of a lifetime. I couldn’t imagine how awkward it would be flying solo or in a small group and having to mix/make decisions about where to surf with a bunch of randoms.

Get a captain that’s prepared to travel. Thankfully our captain was. Realise fuel is the biggest overhead but also that if your guy is only going to visit a handful of locations the crowds will be there too.

Think about other options. Plenty of land camps north and south in the archipelago that can be done on the cheap with less crowds and more cultural embedding. Just ask yourself: what sort of trip are you after?

What else?

Who’s been recently?