"Hand out the red noses…eradicate the kooks!"
Surfers have taken a terrific sport in making fun of brave vulnerable adult learners who venture into the hallowed grounds of the Menatawai Islands, an archipelago popularised by the salvage diver Martin Daly along with the camping retailer Rip Curl in the nineties.
The first time I heard of Marty and the Mentawais was in the early part of that decade when I saw a handful of film snapshots of Martin Potter and Tom Carroll on the biggest, cleanest waves I’d seen outside of Hawaii.
Fifteen years later the joint was overrun with charter boats and, now, the flotilla resembles a navy fleet as it steams from wave to wave, each captain pressured to give his paying clientele some sort of profound surf experience. It still has its moments but it ain’t nothing like it was when Marty and his pals first came to town.
Were you there? I first hit in 1996 and, then, wild fruits hung from branches just waiting to be plucked and the waters of the lagoon were full of fish. Natives were happy to share this bounty with what was regarded as gentle western recluses.
And it’s this overcrowding that has created the impetus for accounts such as @badgertales, run by ex-semi pro and boat skipper Dave Badger, where regular episodes titled The Shit Show show life, as it is now, in the Ments.
And these episodes have led to some terrific debate on the merits, or not, of the joints appeal to VALS.
Most followers side with Badger’s take on the sitch although the big-waver Koby Abberton was correct to point out,
“Maybe add when it’s actually 6-8ft and pumping there 10 people in the water and 4 who want sets. It’s truth and to keep the charters and land camps happy. 3ft is the same anywhere in the world = packed.”
Are you part of the eradicate kooks gang, thereby freeing up pretty three-foot waves, or do you fear you might be caught up in the round-up?
well, should badger even be pointing out this problem considering he’s got a charter boat which likely gets booked out by “adult learners” a few times each season?
I think he likes to have a little fun!
Been given a provisional green light from the boss for a trip this year but really not sure if it’s worth it anymore.
Yeah, Ments is done, unless you’re real lucky and you’re skipper is a gun. I hear wonderful things about Krui.
Stop blowing up secret spots!
I never said Enggano!
Enggano has a shit ton of coast line and many many possible setups. The wave they surfed is a bit of a unicorn. We surfed it fairly average at , I dunno, 3-5 feet and it was fun but it was more the adventure than the wave that made that trip memorable.
It’s not bad, but trade fickle. Needs true swell to turn on but best waves aren’t in Krui anyway.
Bark at young kooks more. Hold them accountable. If you’ve surfed your whole life and you let bad etiquette slide, you’re part of the problem. I’m pussy-adjacent and I even I will tell someone to paddle out somewhere else, take their fucking turn, find their own peak, etc. It’s up to all of us.
I’m definitely guilty of this – not saying something when it’s warranted.
A 40-something dude told me “don’t even fucking think about it” in a very gruff voice once about 30 years ago after me, a teenaged idiot, paddled around him a couple times to get to the peak. I never forgot it, and I learned then and there to take my turn. That’s often all it takes.
Fucking pussy hahaha. Hey cc have you signed up for that new fantasy surfer? Did ya get the email from cgerk?
I just did… we’ll see how it goes over there. \,,,/
Just got back to the surf but still dreaming of the snow.
The speed, the carves, the thrill of vertical descent.
Surfing is so far back on the evolutionary scale it’s actually pretty sad.
nah
Snowboarding very fun for one day, two max, unless you’re at Mammoth with Matt Biolos and he’s showing you some wild ol off-piste lines.
We need to gently steer these same kooks to the wonders of big wall climbing
and don’t forget they could become 10% poolies?
Pools all around everywhere. If only a little cheaper.
had my fill BITD, and probably won’t return….so VAL it up.
It’s Stan not Dave Badger. And Potz & Co. weren’t in the ments. Not that facts really count here in the pursuit of clicks. Been to the ments heaps and it’s waaaaaay better to surf with a pack of kooks than a pack of Brazilians.
You should go to the Hinako Islands!
Was there in 1990 before the earthquake with a crew that hitched a ride with a fishing boat from Lagundri. Lived feral at Bawa and with a local in Asu. It was epic. Only ever the 6 of us in the water. Pretty much everywhere world class is fucked now when it comes to crowds except the coasts we surf north and south of Durban.
The brazzo crews are loud and obnoxious but usually faily easy to paddle too deep, they cant handle anyone sitting deeper. Sacrifice a few waves to get them behind the takeoff then sneak away and profit, they usually end up burning each other, seen it way more often than you’d think.
The real problem is usually Goldy or Nothern Beaches crews, often nice dudes but fit, greedy and skilled surfers. They don’t ever take turns at home, it’s not in their DNA to give anyone a wave, understandable but fuck they are punishing to share a lineup with.
Hawaiians are relatively rare but easily way more cunty than anyone, I truly beleive they think they’re doing everyone a favour by showing how well they surf.
very solid and on point assessment.
“Hawaiians are relatively rare but easily way more cunty than anyone”
One one previous Mentawai project, we had only one Hawaii surfer on the boat – a well-known neighbor island bruiser. After the overnight crossing from Padang, he somehow managed to get into a fistfight with the only other surfer in the lineup at sunrise Lance’s Left within FIVE MINUTES of paddling from the boat –
Hahahahahahaha they are a fucking nightmare to surf with, North Shore ones especially. Nobody is as fucked as the Israelis though, those cunts are out of control
Agreed. I had never dealt with them until I went on a trip to Sri Lanka about ten years ago. I was confused, they looked and acted like Brazo’s but were speaking in a very gutteral language. Got burnt by one on one of the best waves of my trip. He came back out and wanted to fight me because I should have gone right? We were surfing a peak but the lefts were way better and I was inside of him and was always going the left. He also said he was being filmed by a friend and that’s why he caught the wave? I had never come across such a low level of surfing with such a high level of aggro. They were like a plague over there.
Haha ahhh man how bad are they? Like ya say virtually zero surfing skills and heaps aggressive they’re like a Brazzo/Euro kook hybrid ay haha
dustin barca? kamalei? or tai van dyke? has to be one of the three…
Super anecdotal, but in my experience many Hawaiians have no sense of irony or self-effacing humor. Even the most obvious of gags or silly comments seem to be taken as a slight or somehow an encroachment on their space, sense of honor, etc. etc.. Can be real stiffs. I do like the premium they put on respect but it’s a pressure in the culture that seems to have very few release valves.
The Israelis are amazingly easier to deal with. If you throw out a few words in Hebrew, say you’ve been to Israel and love the food, say you find it interesting, blah blah blah (I’m not a Zionist but it is an interesting country to visit), they will, invariably, chill the fuck out and be conscious that you’re another human in the water. Unless they’re a total fuckwit.
They will, however, go on to burn people on the best wave of the day, and then argue to the person taking off deeper than them that the wave was a closeout anyway. Compromise is not really the common form of negotiation in the Levant, I’ve found.
Thankfully I am from the right side of the border so escape this assessment haha
You have to deal with the cunts when they come down your way, it’s been a while since I surfed in your neck of the woods but imagine there’s more and more of them these days.
So many on any small swell from the southerly directions. I used to have a little sympathy but now I have given up surfing the Superwank that has now vanished completely.
Anyone acting a cunt I just burn now and if they say anything I just point to my ears and say overly loudly that I can’t hear a thing cuz I’ve got a bad double ear infection haha
The times I’ve surfed with good surfers from south Africa have been similar to people’s experience with good surfers from Hawaii.
The one positive thing I can say about Brazzos is like Australians they tend to respect ability. If they see someone is a competent surfer they will hassle them less.
Next time just give them a klap
I don’t think I’ll ever go to the ments. Dreamed about it as a kid and all I hear now is how crowded it is. Have some VAL friends. Invited me. Politely turned down so as to not undignify myself with the group of people who picked up going straight on a mid-length in their mid-twenties. Never found the right crew to go with.
Hopefully will have some Aussie crew to go with one day. They’re right in the middle of having kids, getting married, mortgage so it’s a bit difficult now, but I’d rather be the kook of the trip than herding people who feel like they are entitled to a place in the lineup regardless of skill or respect for others and barely got off rubber fins a few years ago.
Really, the solution is what Koby alludes to (never thought I’d be agreeing with Koby): surf big, heavy waves, and you’ll surf with less people out. I’d have to stop being the level of pussy I am and abandon my other life interests to get there.
Oh well!
Wiggling with the masses for me I guess.
Paradise lost, it was always going to happen. Take Katiet(Lance’s Right village) for example, stunning white sand beach, perfect waves straight out front and probably surfable 300 days a year. The Euro trash have bought cheap land in bulk and now make better money selling the land over the waves. Joint looks more and more like Kuta every year, only hope is for Prabowo to see the $$$ and seize all foreign owned lands.
Non-citizens cannot technically own property in Indonesia – is frequently done done via a proxy, an Indonesian citizen who holds the title.
These arrangements, while common are considered null and void in Indonesian courts because it violates public policy and statutory law.
As it should be I say. Bali would be even more of a cesspool of Western villas, hotels, yoga studios and cafes overrun with digital nomad idiots pushing out locals. Crazy how overrun it is today despite the foreign ownership rules
I have got the most hectic Koby story from Indo but do I tell it ummmmmm hahah
Let it out. Pretty sure there’s lots of Koby stories from Indo. Boys went nuts out at Panaitan once.
so you’re the fabled “guy that heard it from a guy”.
Nah, that’s you and all your blatant attempts to pretend you have military and law enforcement experience.
you seem especially vulnerable with your mental health as of late. This strange obsession you have just isn’t healthy Barrelled.
We’re here for you.
If you don’t tell it, we’ll never let you have Vegemite again…EVER!
Not much would surprise us, dude is so cooked.
Mate, anyone who has spent time in indo has a koby story, it’s nothing to be brag about. Worst cunt in the world to share a lineup with.
Hahahaha true mate
Would love to hear yours mate cuz typing shit out takes me forever haha
Surfed Keramas with Koby way back in the day, long before the resorts. TBH, didn’t recognise him at first. Probably about 6 of us out sharing waves and I was shitting cos these bra boys keep staring at me. Anyway this Japanese guy turns up with a paddle blocker local, and of course burn me first. Koby fucken looses his shit and starts screaming at what I thought was me (ya get used to this when you lid). Then this massive guy paddles over, but goes straight past me and tells the local dude (paddle blocker) he and the Japanese guy have to go in. They then continued surfing and said nothing to me.
When I went in a little later and got breakfast from the warung on the beach, the young Indo girl serving told me my meal was all paid for and point to a bunch of tatted up guys sitting at a table in the corner. I tried to say thanks but they just kinda ignored me and said no worries.
Still to this day have no idea what it all meant
Use the little microphone button on your digital keyboard
Works well for those long messages
Siri: “I am sorry Mr Straying Aunt, but I could not understand your message. Please try again. Additionally, you might want to try holding the microphone closer and/or removing the marbles from your mouth.”
Spill it..
I only had 3 wishes for 26 …semen cunt putin and Netanyahu to kick the bucket early…ah well I can dream
John Semen Cunt represent!
Xox
“a handful of film snapshots of Martin Potter and Tom Carroll on the biggest, cleanest waves I’d seen outside of Hawaii”
Enggano Island, not the Mentawai – still barely surfed to this day.
Place is pretty raw in many ways. Gets a bit more exposed to trades than Ments so fickle. Not exactly full of quality anchorages either but there are a few.
During the Dutch colonial period, they used to send political prisoners to a camp on Enggano – no chance of escape.
There was a surf camp there before the pandemic and a few boats come by now and again, but you could still go to Enggano in 2026 and surf with very few people around.
If you want to re-live what the pioneers were doing in the Mentawai in the early to mid 1990’s, take the public boat to Enggano and sort our some basic accommodation with locals when you get there. Use local boats to find waves around the island – that is as close as you can get to re-creating a pioneer Mentawai experience in this area in 2026.
Will any of them have purchased your book?
I certainly hope so!
They don’t have to travel with the physical version of THE BOOK, as it is rather heavy but a Kindle format version would be appropriate –
“When doing the research and planning for this project. I had a memorable conversation with Sam George, the Editor of SURFER Magazine at the time. He asked a series of questions starting with “Do you know anyone who has been to the Andamans?” “No,” I answered. “Have you seen any photos of the waves we are going to surf?” “No,” I answered. “Do you know where the waves are in the Andamans?” “No,” I answered.
Sam then said, his voice rising slightly in pitch “So you are asking me to spend thousands of dollars of magazine money based solely on your reputation for this kind of thing?” “Yes,” I answered. “Ok, count me in” Sam responded.”
Hilarious 🤭🤣
I don’t think that footage of Carroll and Pottz is the Ments. Close, but not quite.