August in Indonesia... part I

The idea started out as a clever (yet predictable) way to get our wives to let us guys go on an Indonesian charter-boat surf trip. Clever because we only realized after organization work started that we had 5 guys all turning 40 in 2006, but predictable because if it wasn't the birthdays I'm sure we would have cooked up some other excuse.

Organizing for this thing began almost a year ago, it wasn't too much work since we used a booking agency to help, but still there was a fair bit of running around that needed to be done. In the end we pulled together a great crew, some more experienced surfers, some less, some having extensively travelled in Indo, others never having been to Asia.

The trip plan was pretty simple, everyone make their own way to Bali, then meet up at the Airport and all fly together to Kupang, West Timor. From Kupang we'd get picked up at the airport by the charter boat crew (in trucks) and driven to the port where we would board our boat, the Mahallo II. Surprisingly, we had no issues at all with the pre-boarding travels, everyone and their boards arrived in perfect condition.

Boarding the Mahallo II, I think we all had fairly high expectations. By the end of the trip I don't there was a single one of us that didn't have their expectations exceeded. For me individually, it was a combination of several factors, great surf, killer food, comfortable sleeping quarters, friendly staff, and the sense that we were really out there on the frontier.

A little bit more on the surf for those interested... we had 4-6 foot faces the first few days, nice and clean with long, long left handers. Not so hollow, but plenty walled up for working on snaps, turns, cutbacks, etc. By the 3rd day it bumped up considerably to 10-12 foot + faces and all the other breaks nearby (the first few days we were on the same left hander) started firing, so we started deploying away teams to other spots. One of the spots was a right that was hollow, fast, and very, very critical. Critical in that about half of the guys hit bottom pretty hard on their first wave or two and only a small group elected for a second sesh there. The bigger sets were producing truly world class barrels, probably the best waves I've ever seen first hand. For a regular footer, this trip was really a good experience... either you are being challenged by going left or if you are going right, you are being challenged by the speed and criticality of the section and consequence. By the end of the trip, I think we were all surfed out. In fact judging by the number of guys sitting on the deck drinking beers the last day (could have been out getting one last surf) I'd say everyone got their fill of waves. Add'l pics posted below... http://www.flickr.com/photos/pradoteeple/sets/72157594281510404/