16 posts tagged “nias”
I've started to plan my return surf trip to Northen Sumatra in May. I've already been there once. Why am I going back?
- I've seen how consistent the swell is on Surfline (even though it was sort of small last time)
- I know there are a lot of world class spots up there
- There still aren't very many boats operating up that way
- No effects from the recent Mentawai earthquakes
What's different about this trip?
- Boat leaving out of Padang, not Sibolga, Simeulue, or Nias
- A day longer on the boat
- More efficient flights meaning less time off work and more surf time
- Half the guys from last time have had kids and can't go back
Why May?
- Memorial day weekend gets me an additional day for free
- Historically a very consistent month for swell
- technically peak season but possibly a bit less busy than June/July/Aug
First of all I don't have any information now, but will post any I receive as I hear back from friends or contacts with first or second hand experience. The only people who know the real scoop are out on boats now or will be going out over the next month or so.
I realize it is a bit crass to be discussing surf spot changes when there has been loss of life and much loss of property in the area, but if you can take a longer term view the world class spots offshore from Sumatra are some of the most consistent in the world and are one of the best chances to bringing low-impact, high-dollar tourism and development to this area. Ask yourself, would Dr. Dave Jenkins have started Surf Aid to prevent malaria in a group of rural, undeveloped islands on the _eastern_ side of Sumatra? Surf spot changes (which are bound to be mostly negative) will impact the long-term growth prospects of this region. I hope there were no negative effects on spots and that the word gets out that Macca's is still working while people are still thinking about where to go for next season.
Generally speaking it usually takes an 8+ earthquake to materially deform the earth's surface, and the 8.6 that hit North of Nias in March of 2005 has had a big effect on spots in Nias, the Hinakos, Simeulue, and the Banyaks. I did some imprecise Google Earth measurements and Lagundri Bay on Nias is about the same distance from the 8.6 Northern Sumatra quake as the southern end of South Pagai in the Mentawais is from the recent 8.4 quake. I realize the most recent quake may or may not have created much uplift but just on distance alone it still could affect Thunders, The Hole, and other secret spots in the southern Ments. Waves on Enggano or mainland Sumatra could be more significantly affected. Finally, Northern Sipora (the telescopes area) suffered a direct hit from a 7.2 aftershock. That's almost as big as the Loma Prieta earthquake that hit the Bay Area in 1989. Even if there was no effect on local surf spots it might be a bit harder to find a family to stay with if you want to go feral in Tua Pajet.
The big quake is coming to the Mentawais
If you've always wanted to surf the Mentawais (Siberut, Sipora, North Pagai, South Pagai) but just haven't gotten around to it, you should go soon. I hate to cry wolf here but Sumatra has been very seismically active lately. There were TWO major quakes of Northern Sumatra, the Christmas Tsunami quake that killed hundreds of thousands of people and THEN another huge 8+ quake off Nias in March 2005. The Nias quake rearranged (reminder to self - find photo of uplift in Simeulue) surf breaks all around Nias, but didn't really affect the Mentawais. When we sailed by the SE corner of simeulue we saw where the former waterline had been lifted up by about half the height of a coconut tree - 15 or 20 feet out of the water. Yes there are new breaks and some breaks got better, but most breaks got worse. Bawa, the famous swell-magnet right in the Hinakos is not nearly what it was before. Forget about catching it like Tom Curren did in the Rip Curl search video from 1994.
Whether the upcoming Mentawai quake pushes the breaks up or down, any change to the bottom contours of a perfect wave like HT's or Macaroni's is a change for the worse. Nature does not by default create perfect ruler-edged reefs - great surf spots are a freak of nature, even in indonesia. Also note that it's the offshore reefs that refract swell almost 180 degrees around to HT's lineup - if they submerge or rise that spot may stop working entirely.
Crowds are lower than they have been for years
A few days back I got a mass marketing email from Sean Murphy the president of Waterways travel. I've pasted in his message below in quotes. What he's saying echoes what I've noticed on booking sites and heard from other sources.
"
WHY:
The Mentawai Islands are experiencing a downturn in traffic for a variety of reasons. Last year was one of the worst seasons in the Ments in recent history due to slightly less swell than previous years combined with persistent south wind conditions. When the winds blow from the South in the Mentawais there are only a few breaks that favor this wind such as Thunders and Burger World which also pick up quite a lot of swell. In attempts to get their passengers the best surf possible many of the boats congregated at the few spots which were best given the conditions. As a result, many charters experienced crowded conditions, unfavorable winds, or lack of swell given the breaks chosen by the captains and passengers on-board.
Compounding the poor conditions many experienced last year, it was apparent to all who made the journey that there are a number of upscale land camps under development which have already opened, or were scheduled to open for the 2007 season. Although this is true, the land based resorts are experiencing their own problems this year. Accessing the land camps has proven difficult, often requiring unreliable local ferry transportation. Macaronis Resort had based its schedule around a sea plane operation which has just been cancelled effectively resulting in the cancellation of all bookings for the 2007 season. Other currently operational resorts such as Aloita Resort (Telescopes/Playground) and Katiet Villas (HT’s Lances etc) have wide open availability for the 2007 season as a result of late confirmation of flights from Padang to Rokot (Mentawais). Katiet and Aloita are not listed under specials below. Contact our office if interested in Mentawai land based resort for current detail.
Finally, WaterWays has been approached by many boats over the past 2-6 weeks that are either represented by other surf travel operators, or have been operating independently, to see if we could produce any groups for them this season. For the most part we have turned these boats away preferring to stick exclusively with our current fleet which is proven and thankfully mostly booked this season.
Given that most the resorts and many of the yachts have the bulk of their space remaining available at this time, it is unlikely that their occupancy levels will increase significantly. Most people booking a 14+ day trip to Indonesia book well in advance, especially if trying to coordinate a group. Our March/April groups have been surfing with no crowds even at the big name breaks – empty lineups.
WITH ALL THE ABOVE FACTORS IN PLAY, THIS IS THE BEST TIME FOR THOSE WHO ARE ABLE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SITUATION AND GET TO INDO TO EXPERIENCE THE BEST SURF IN THE WORLD"
Did I already mention I love surfline? If you're a premium member they do these long-range forecasts and show you what's coming up in the next two weeks. These things are great as you get closer and closer to the date of your trip. Me, I don't have a trip this year, so this is pure vicarious viewing on my part. If you're heading to indo any time this week, you're scoring. Note that the swell will basically never drop below head high for two weeks. Even if the macker swell for 5/16-5/18 turns out to be a little overstated it will still be plenty big. The only variable now is between two and three times overhead. By the time these things get to 5-7 days out the swell is basically already in the water and the forecasts are pretty solid. I've been watching these charts for a couple years and Indo has two week runs like this fairly often during the season, which is why I devote so much real estate to talking about it - it's pretty much a sure thing with respect to consistent clean swell and benign winds.
Note also the nice SW swell direction, great for some spots in Northern Sumatra and sure to light up spots in the Mentawais that need a strong SW push like Telescopes. If the swell actually comes through at 11 ft 19 sec that is tow-in city.
I'm not the first to name this spot or put up a map, that was this guy or the World Stormrider Guide Volume 2. The spot is also known as Machine Gun Rights. Several boat operators refuse to name the spot, all the while treating it as the focus of their Northern Sumatra boat trips.
However, once I went there I realized the spot is NOT where the online map or the map in World Stormrider Guide Vol. 2 say it is. Those maps are an inside joke that do exactly what this blog post is trying to do - reveal that there is great surf in this general area, and if you actually make it to indo and ask around or book with the right operator, you'll probably be able to score it. Any of the boat operators I list as "dedicated" to Northern Sumatra on this post can dial you in to a session.
There are important downsides to this spot however:
1) Treasure Island needs a fair amount of swell from a specific direction - not every swell angle will get in.
2) It's not a swell magnet - it needs to be decent sized to get going.
3) The area is extremely isolated. Forget about flying in, and it will take a long time to get there by bus/ferry. The area is lightly populated with poor land access to the break. You won't easily be able to buy shelter, food, or transport from locals anywhere near the surf spot. There are definitely no local surfers, nor are there really any local villagers. The extreme isolation means that boats accessing this spot have limited time to wait around for the right swell/wind combo to make it happen. It's at least a few days motor from Padang, meaning if you book a 10 day trip out of Padang and opt to head north you'll surf the Telos on Day 1, Nias on day 2 or 3, and up north by day 4 or 5. Your trip is half gone and you're just getting there. The "Sjalina" operating out of Simeulue, "Mikumba" or "KM Nauli" out of Nias or Sibolga, and "Bohemian" out of Sibolga probably have the closest access and could conceivably surf there on the first & last day of their trip. But remember - for those sensitive to time off work, just getting to Nias or Sibolga takes an extra travel day coming in and going home.
The camp featured on www.simeulue.com claims quiksilver travel as their US booking partner but if you visit quiksilver travel's site the Simeulue camp/boat trip is nowhere to be found. As with most camps/boats in indo that drop off the scene it's probably more perception and loss of marketing partners than the camp folding or going away. Here's the scoop from reader Jon:
"I finally got ahold of quik travel and got the lowdown on baneng beach resort. The old owner got tired of muslim law i.e. not being able to drink beer and took a job w/ the UN. Since the camp is so remote and they're not familiar w the new owners, it is too much of a logistical nightmare to book trips w/ them. The good news is that everyone who stayed at Baneng was stoked on the waves!"
Simeulue is one of the last frontiers in Indo surf travel. It's very exposed to swell, and many of the known breaks were rearranged in the March 2005 earthquake. It's a big island, and boat trips to Northern Sumatra rarely make it past the SE corner. It's very isolated and hard to get to though.
All across Indonesia local farmers, merchants, and fishermen live in front of world class surf breaks. For a very small fee, you can probably get a place to sleep and eat some local food. I'm not going to talk about these options in this post, because first of all, they are rarely marketed on the internet, so I can't help you find them. Second, I've never stayed in one, so can't make personal recommendations. These arrangements are generally referred to as "feral", and I use the term with no disrespect. It's just not for me, not right now. What I've got listed below are non-feral options on Sumatra and the offshore islands. Some have A/C, some have internet access, some have a speedboat, but all have non-exclusive access to 5-star waves straight out front.
I may get around to discussing non-feral options in Java, Bali, and Nusa Tenggara in a later post, but for now, this is just Sumatra options.
Northern Sumatra (ex-Lagundri):
Baneng Island Resort Simeulue
Asu Paradise (formerly "Gangster's Paradise")
Hinakos Hideaway
Telos Lodge
Mentawais
Playgrounds surf camp (playgrounds)
Wavepark (playgrounds)
Kandui Surf Resort (playgrounds/Kanduis)
Macaronis resort (North Pagai/Macaronis)
Aloita resort (Northern Sipura/Telescopes)
Katiet Villas (Southen Sipura/HT's)
Eco Bay (playgrounds/e bay)
links and more camps coming soon...
Check out this site for a reasonably good listing of global surf camps, that includes some of the indo camps I mentioned above.
This itinerary gets you to Padang (Where all mentawai and many Northern Sumatra boat trips depart from) in the least amount of time with the best in-flight service and entertainment and the least board bag charges. You could substitute China Airlines and it might be a little cheaper on airfare but no seatback TV's and $100 more in board bag charges. Friday night after work - grab your board bag and head to SFO AIR SINGAPORE 1 COACH CLASS 744 LV: SAN FRANCISCO 120A ONE STOP AR: SINGAPORE 1140A ARR DATE +1 AIR SINGAPORE 958 COACH CLASS 772 LV: SINGAPORE 1250P NONSTOP AR: JAKARTA/CGK 125P AIR GARUDA INDON 164 COACH CLASS 734 LV: JAKARTA/CGK 420P NONSTOP AR: PADANG 550P Just in time to see the sunset and get on the boat! Get shacked for 13 days and 14 nights Sunday morning - arrive back in port before 7AM or you'll probably miss this Garuda flight. Remember, if you miss this flight, you miss your connection in Jakarta and you'll have to spend the day in Padang, Jakarta, or Singapore. My picks would be Padang at the Hotel Batang Arau or Singapore. AIR GARUDA INDON 163 COACH CLASS 734 LV: PADANG 900A NONSTOP AR: JAKARTA/CGK 1040A This is a bit of a tight connection here, but you should be OK since Garuda arrives back in the international terminal. Non-Garuda indo airlines fly into the domestic terminal and it's non-trivially hard to get your board bag on to the shuttle that goes from the international terminal to the domestic terminal AIR SINGAPORE 957 COACH CLASS 773 LV: JAKARTA/CGK 1220P NONSTOP AR: SINGAPORE 255P SUNDAY AIR SINGAPORE 2 COACH CLASS 744 LV: SINGAPORE 500P ONE STOP AR: SAN FRANCISCO 725P And look at that by the magic of flying east and crossing the international date line you have arrived back in foggy SFO at 7:30PM on the same Sunday you got back into port. That's efficient! So if these are the best flights, what is the price and how do I buy it? You CAN book this itinerary on Orbitz, but the price they will quote is horrific. For example $3,909 for the ticket below, and just $1300 to get all the way to Jakarta. Screwy, eh? Instead I suggest one of two tricks:
If you're taking a boat trip to Northern Sumatra (Nias, Hinakos, Banyaks, Telos, Simeulue), you may end up experiencing Sibolga. It's a one-day motor from the Telos and much closer to Nias and the Banyaks than Padang, but that's about all you can say in it's favor. I'm not sure if Teluk Dalam on Nias is any better, but I discovered quite a few things going against Sibolga:
The Airport - it's tiny, over an hour from the port, and served only a few days a week by Merpati. If you're lucky enough to fly to Sibolga consider yourself extremely blessed and bitch not about how far away the airport is or the tiny aircraft you'll be flying on. The only thing you have to worry about is DON'T MISS YOUR FLIGHT because there isn't another one and then you'll be facing:
The Drive - the drive from Medan is a total kick in the nuts. Even if you get into Medan first thing in the morning, you have roughly 10 hours of car travel ahead of you so you won't arrive until after dark. Lake Toba is in the middle and you'll get lunch with a breathtaking view high above the lake with perfect Hawaii breezes and cooler temperatures, but really you're not even close to the ocean so don't fool yourself. The road is good, except after it gets dark and people start to fall asleep, then the super-twisty 45 minute descent into Sibolga kicks in and it's murder.
The Bugs - In the space of 15 minutes I killed 20 mosquitoes sitting in the lobby of the nicest (only?) hotel in town. When you kill 20 mosquitoes one at a time it makes an impression. I know the malarial ones are small and silent and all westerners are way to paranoid about malaria, but I didn't have it growing up and I have to go to work pretty much the day after I leave Sibolga so cut me some slack.
The Smugglers - You're in a shithole town in an underdeveloped corner of a developing country. Two ethnic Chinese guys wearing Ferrari Formula One jackets and Ray-Ban aviator glasses are feeding gas into their shiny new powerboat with two huge Yamaha 250's on the back and enjoying tall Bintangs at the nicest (only?) proper restaurant in town. This close to Thailand and Myanmar, what do you think they're up to? We were smart enough to not ask.
The State of Development - The locals who live in the valuable real estate along the main road do not use cooking gas. They use bundles of sticks for heat and cooking, as we saw for sale all over. I have no idea what people in the country were up to. Mobile phones are nowhere in evidence among those with motor vehicles. The bemos are rustbuckets having no stickers, pieces of flair, or sweet car-alarm horns. The rivers leading to the ocean are fetid. Visiting Balinese would be shocked this is their country. It's not as ugly as the slums of Jakarta, but this is a tiny little town for Chrissakes. The major downside of this for a visiting Westerner is there is zero local market for things you might be interested in. The tough beef we ate on our boat trip traveled in from Medan with us on our drive to Sibolga. The best meat available in Sibolga is probably pretty questionable.
Worst of all, The Smell - For our midday drive from the harbor to the airport, the sun was generally out, and in the 45 minutes between departing the harbor until we were in a rural area NOT ONCE was our vehicle not bathed in the smell of sewage. It didn't come and go. It was right there the whole time. The whole city.
I'm not down on Indonesia or the developing world, just this town. It's awful. The only saving grace for surfers is that Sibolga is doing its part to keep the surf spots of Northern Sumatra uncrowded. So if you're committed enough to get there, you'll get more than your share.
This is a semi-complete list of all the agencies and operators that are selling boat trips in Indonesia. Consider this a work in progress. I expect this will need to be updated again in the future. Please note that some boats based in Padang may run trips to either the Mentawais or Northern Sumatra, so they are shown on both lists. For the Northern Sumatra boats, I've noted which boats are dedicated to Northern Sumatra. These will tend to have more experienced captains that know the spots better. The Mentawais have too many boats to list here, but the other areas have a smaller number of boats so I've tried to list them here.
Mentawais
Sumatran Surfaris - www.sumatransurfaris.com
Quiksilver Travel - www.quiksilvertravel.com
Saraina Koat Mentawai - http://www.mentawaiislands.com/
Indies Explorer - http://www.wavescape.co.za/indies.htm
World Surfaris - www.worldsurfaris.com
Wavehunters - www.wavehunters.com
Waterways Travel - www.waterwaystravel.com
Indies Trader boats - http://www.indiestrader.com/
Freeline Surf - www.freelinesurf.com.au
Northern Sumatra (Telos, Nias, Hinakos, Banyaks, Simeulue)
"Mikumba", "Southern Cross" (both dedicated to Northern Sumatra) - Sumatran Surfaris - www.sumatransurfaris.com
Indies Trader boats - http://www.indiestrader.com/
"Bohemian" (dedicated to Northern Sumatra) - Waterways Travel - www.waterwaystravel.com
"Indo Jiwa", "Tengirri", "Mangalui Ndulu" - World Surfaris - www.worldsurfaris.com
"MV Addiction", "Mangalui Ndulu" at Wavehunters - www.wavehunters.com
"Aileoita II" - Saraina Koat Mentawai - www.mentawaiislands.com
"Sia" - www.surftravelonline.com
"Sjalina" (dedicated to Northern Sumatra) - www.quiksilvertravel.com, www.freelinesurf.com.au
"KM Nauli" (dedicated to Northern Sumatra) - http://www.surfingsumatra.com/
West Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Lebongan, Lombok, Sumbawa)
"Moggy" World Surfaris - www.worldsurfaris.com
"Dreamweaver", "Partama" - www.surftravelonline.com
East Nusa Tenggara (Timor, Roti, Sumba)
"Mahalo II" - www.waterwaystravel.com
"Moana" - www.surftravelonline.com
"Sri Noa Noa" - www.freelinesurf.com.au
West Java (Panaitan Island)
"Nomad" - www.nomadsurfindonesia.com
"Just Dreaming" - www.quiksilvertravel.com, www.freelinesurf.com.au\
Peucang Island camp - www.surfpanaitan.com/
