Dreamsurf in the Mentawai

Surfing the Mentawai. Isn’t that the dream of every surfer? This summer I got the opportunity to travel through Indonesia for a month and to explore several islands of this diverse, spread out country. After one week in Simeulue my next destination were the Mentawai. The tropical islands which are in front of Sumatra and that are known for its heavy, but beautiful waves. After my first struggle to find a safe and decent place to stay, I found the waves that I was looking for.

The surf in Simeulue was pretty heavy last week. I managed myself well out there, but I was a bit nervous to go surfing in the Mentawai. What if I would only find heavy, shallow reef breaks? I am not a bad surfer; I have been surfing for 16 years. But I am also not a professional surfer and if the surf gets bigger than 8 foot I can also get scared. After seeing also those videos of beautiful, but heavy surf, I was a bit nervous about my surf trip in the Mentawai.

Well, too be short. Those nerves were unnecessary! Eric of Surfsmo.com (a surfcamp called the Southern Mentawai Outpost) was an amazing surf guide for the first two days and he showed me that there are several spots in the Mentawai, where you can find easy, fun, but sometimes also fast waves. My first encounter with the surf spot called Roxies was a bit unfortunate, because after my seasickness I was too weak to handle those (big) waves. But on the last few days I had a blast with surfing Roxies. I love that spot!

We found some good waves there. Sometimes they were a bit fast and you could even find barrels there. But in general the waves at Roxies (a right hand point break) were just fun and easy to surf. After the heavy surf in Simeulue it was a relieve to find some easy, fun waves. One afternoon Eric and I just had the surf spot for ourselves and the other day I surfed there with three local kids.

This is why I love surfing. To have fun in the water, to play in the waves and to chill. After surfing for two days with Eric, I moved to Reno’s guesthouse called Oinan’s and I continued surfing with him. Reno is a local boy of 28 years old, that grew up in the Mentawai. For about 10 years he lived in Bali though and that’s why his English is pretty good.

Reno understands what having fun is and it has been wonderful to surf with him. He got a small boat from his dad and we used that to come around. His whole family helped with getting his boat ready and after some work on the motor, we were ready to go. It felt like an adventure to go out on a small speedboat, while all the international surf charters float around on big charter boats. It took us 45 minutes to get out to Roxies and it was fantastic. For about 5 hours we had the whole spot for ourselves. First it was a bit messy, but after that the wind went down and we surfed on glassy, head high waves for 2 hours straight. With nobody else in the water. This is what surfing in the Mentawai is about. This is every surfer’s dream and we managed to find it. That is an incredible feeling and I can’t wait to find more!