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?


Mexico sail, day one: “Crew feed provisions to greedy seagull!”

And do bribes still work in Mex?

Ohhhh sweet Mexico, I see you there off the port side glimmering in the early morning darkness. Like a dusting of flippy sequins flipped to silver and are your children involved in the flippy sequin craze?

The crew of the good ship Sunset certainly are.

Of all mankind’s greatest accomplishments, I believe that continually inventing fads is the most honorable.

Flojos, Hypercolor, Garbage Pail Kids… I thought we had chewed through every last fad possible by 1992 but these days we have squishies, DIY slime and flippy sequins.

The first wetsuit company to employ in kiddie sizes will make a mint but I digress.

Morale is currently high.

Many blue whales frolic in the still chilly water and mini dolphins jump to greet us. Yesterday the crew decided it was a good idea to feed the snacks to a greedy seagull and then tried to make DIY slime with some other snacks.

We will see how it all goes trying to clear customs in Ensenada without paperwork from the mothers.

Do bribes still work in Mexico?

The crew wants to surf Tacos in at Scorpion Bay and I smell a mutiny if it is rendered impossible due bureaucratic shenanigans.

Tacos, again, are what my daughter calls barrels and, speaking of fads I’m shocked that various names for the barrel stopped evolving in 1992.

Green room? Tube? Sugar Shack?

Ugh.

What do millennials call them? What about The Pepsi Generation?

More later.


BeachGrit writer eyeballed by White at Lennox: “I can feel the pressure wave on my legs; the big pectoral fins look like a plane.”

The day after a mass bull shark appearance down the road, Steve "Longtom" Shearer comes face to face with a Great White at Lennox Head…

Odd to see the joint I chose to live at transformed into one of the shark attack capitals of the World.

I say attack but behind every attack are untold encounters/circlings/bumpings/drive bys blah blah blah.

I never pretend to be a local here. I’m a blow-in, a Bribie redneck through and through. No amount of Dostoevsky, no Borsalino flat cap will ever change that dog.

When we was little scumbags running riot on Bribie our mentor and God Peter B told us about this place. Epic pointbreak, rocks that would shred you, locals who got punchy at the drop of a hat. First look at the place and I knew it was for me.

Peter smoked too much weed, started hearing voices and ended up swinging from the end of a rope. He was only 16. None of us ever recovered from that, not really, but when I got a chance I moved down.

Now we got Whites, we’ve got Bulls. Mostly polite compared to the Reunion ones. They get nasty in the dirty water when the mullet are running but in clear water? That’s surf on and keep your eyes open.

Big tigers, too. Twelve-footer caught on the South Ballina drum line today, a red buoy just out the back at South Wall. Again, compared to the Hawaiian tiger ours seem strangely relaxed. Majestically indifferent.

We get days, like today, of such vibrancy, such purity that you get a go out regardless. Hypeless swells swinging under the surf forecast radar, no one around.

Well one guy. On a mat. I won’t say his name. Before the courts and all that.

We go back in time a long way. Just me and him sharing perfect rock runners. Warm water clear and as full of life as an aquarium, set waves standing up turquoise on the bank before spiralling down the rocks. A sub-tropical dream without a soccer Mum in sight.

My compadre is pissed, as the American saying goes. Spitting chips in the Australian vernacular.

Things ain’t so black and white as the media have made out and the day in court, when it comes, might surprise people. Let’s just say, after seeing and hearing all the evidence I am not totally unsympathetic to his position. We trade waves.

There’s shit to be done. I start thinking I should get home. It’s hard not to play one more wave. Just one more. It’s so pretty in the mid-morning sunlight. Sparkling like diamonds. Fairy wrens still in their summer plumage twittering in the coastal rosemary. Companion rides the first wave of a beautiful set and I bomb the second wave. Just a lazy cutback into the white water and the back foot slipped off. He’s way down the line.

Some little imperceptible rapid movement in my peripheral vision sparks an unconscious reaction. I turn quickly to the movement. It takes a micro-second to see clearly what it is. A White shark. Coming in very hot straight at me. I don’t feel a thing even remotely allied with fear. It’s a “whoa!” I face it. It turns quickly and comes almost to a dead stop.

I paddle back out for one more. Definitely taking the next one in now.

I only got used to surfing solo again this year. Mostly at this spot. Close to the rocks, an easy escape route. But I’m not thinking that, now. I’m wracking my brain trying to think if I’ve written things about my surf buddy, things that might come back and bite me on the arse.

Flick. Some little imperceptible rapid movement in my peripheral vision sparks an unconscious reaction. I turn quickly to the movement. It takes a micro-second to see clearly what it is. A White shark. Coming in very hot straight at me. I don’t feel a thing even remotely allied with fear. It’s a “whoa!” I face it.

It turns quickly and comes almost to a dead stop. I can feel the pressure wave on my legs. White shark does a slow circle around me. I can see it the whole time in the crystal clear water. Comes in nice and slow right underneath me and rolls over. The big pectoral fins look like a plane, the white belly almost gleams in the sun against the dark rocks. We eyeball each other.

There is no fear, no frozen feelings, no panic. Just a profound moment of inter-species communication across the gulf of millions of years of evolution. In that black eye I can already see it has decided I am not prey.

It turns quickly and comes almost to a dead stop. I can feel the pressure wave on my legs. White shark does a slow circle around me. I can see it the whole time in the crystal clear water. Comes in nice and slow right underneath me and rolls over. The big pectoral fins look like a plane, the white belly almost gleams in the sun against the dark rocks.

It rolls under me, rights itself and continues on down the line. I paddle in to the rocks, stop about a metre out and begin hooting to old mate. The White shark is heading straight towards him now. Making the sign of the fin is clearly understood around here. Seconds later we are both on the rocks.

“Get a good look at it?” he said.

“Yeah, really good. Juvie White, seven-or-eight-foot long, frisky.”

“Oh well, it’s probably gone now, surf still looks really good.”

“All yours, I’m out for the day.”

It never came to me in my dreams which makes me think I ain’t bullshitting myself when I said there was no fear.

You never know how you’re going to react.

Ain’t it the queerest thing?


Animals that delight and intrigue! Sixty bull sharks visit popular stretch of Australian coastline. | Photo: NSW Shark Smart

From the animals that rarely fail to intrigue and delight dept: 60 Bull Sharks Close Popular Surf Town!

Call in the drones, the joint is crawling with sharks…

The NSW town of Ballina confirmed its position as the shark capital of Australia yesterday with a stunning display of fireworks at North Wall, activity that shut the stretch of beach from North Wall to Lighthouse down.

The clarity of the water, a dazzling turquoise relatively common in winter, meant the happy pod of sixty six-foot long bull sharks was spotted by drones as well as spectators watching from the rock groyne that gives North Wall its name.

Between 2011 and 2016, Ballina hosted eleven shark attacks, including 2015’s Great White hit that killed Tadashi Nakhara, and serious hits on bodyboarder Matt Lee and Sam Morgan. At the time, the town accounted for almost ten percent of the world’s shark encounters.

In 2016, Dan Webber, who is the brother of Greg Webber, watched as the surfer Cooper Allan got what is described in these part as a “Ballina hickey” from a Great White.

“I was standing in waist deep water, about five metres away, when I saw a shark in the face of a wave between me and three guys sitting further out,” said Dane. “A few seconds later, I heard a shout, followed by the nose of a board sailing through the air.”

The joint finally got shark nets in 2017, but were removed a year later, over concerns they might catch a migrating whale.

Fifty surfers stayed in the lineup yesterday which prompted the town’s mayor David Wright to call ’em “selfish”.

If I wore the mayoral robe I would’ve said, how the fuck did Ballina ever get this crowded?

Out of purely academic curiosity, have you ever wondered what it takes to kill a Great White? Click here. 

If you just want to scare hell out of ’em, click here. 

 


Bon Voyage: I’m sailing from California to Cabo on a boat crewed exclusively by four-year-olds!

Screw you conventional wisdom!

Are you a sailor man or sailor woman? Does the thrill of a stiff wind set your heart soaring? Do you understand the words clew, tack, staysail and jib? Have you unfurled a spinnaker? Well then you’ll appreciate my next ten days.

I’m boarding my best friend, other than Derek Rielly,’s 70 foot sailing yacht tomorrow morning with my child. My best friend will be there with his two children and our other best friend will be there with his two also. No mothers allowed. We’ll be sailing from Newport Beach, California to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with our five children (ranging in age from two to six… averaging out at 4), eighteen hot dogs, three large bags of potato chips, a backpack filled with American Girl Doll accessories and just enough tequila.

Or maybe exactly not enough tequila.

Now, this may not sound like fun but these two best friends and I have been relatively aimless for the past few months. You’ll meet them next year in the book Reports From Hell (Tentative title. Spring 2020 publishing date.) as we spent the better part of two decades playing with radical Islamic fundamentalism in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia etc.

They were fantastic times and we continue to go back, refusing to write the last chapter of this saga, but we also all had kids and what other adventures are possible?

Oh, of course. Sail with them from Newport Beach, California to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in order to prepare for a Panama sail in order to prepare to shoot the Panama Canal and play with Venezuela’s new social order.

Or who really knows? The world will be their oyster on a sailboat. Very ecological as we’ll be using the wind and eating our hot dogs off bamboo plates.

I apologize in advance for my lack of production over the next ten days. I’ll be writing in between cooking hot dogs but who knows what sort of internet connectivity I’ll have.

Until then… so long!