Hey Sjers

Hope everyone is still enjoying the snow.
As some of you may know Spookette and I have decamped and settled in the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia where we are helping a close friend establish and run a surf resort. We’ve been here almost 4 weeks now and things are great. There’s lots of challenges with this sort of business – mostly relating to our remote location and the fact that everything has to be shipped in. Seeing this place rise from the jungle into some pretty swish accommodation is amazing. It’s like being on a remote mine site – generators provide power, there’s a construction crew building the main building, our crew doing the landscaping, boats and other odds and ends… crazy.
Obviously I’ve been pretty quiet on the forums as I’m too busy surfing, carrying heavy stuff around and generally just bustling about (as opposed to my previous job which mostly involved me sitting in an office pretending to work and hanging out on SJ).
Anyway, thought I’d share some pics of the trip so far.

Paul surfing out the front at Pitstops


Walking back from Beng-Bengs


Ewok the kitten


Spook crusing at sunset


One of the crew climbing a massive coconut tree (this is hella scary, I freak out and give up at about 2m, theseguys climb 10m+, and more often than not the tree overhangs a steep hill...)


Yet another epic sunset


Another picturesque island


Spook at Crystals


Some kids in a nearby village

oh yeah, i took the cat and coconut tree pic, the rest were taken by my lovely wife... she's a genius that girl

Nice one Spook. Glad it's all working out. Very envious mate.

To be young and free again.

We are planning a trip to Mentawais next year so I will be keen to follow your progress.

Drool..
enjoy, bring back wicked memories..
Enjoying the Beng Bengs?

fully sik bro'

have a great time, we have been having pouring rain for a week here..

mate, you seriously suck as does this TR Your pics should be BIGGER FFS!! C'mon, we dont want thumbs! We wanna see the pics without using a magnifying glass...I expect better next time!

...jealous mate, looks so beautiful!

haha, yeah i hear ya CB but i don't want to put big versions of some of those pics out on the net. would rather not have people filch them as this has happened to a few of our friends.


things are great hear but also hard,especially for the missus at times. we're living with 15 odd blokes, there's not much privacy, 3rd world hygiene standards (at this stage it is still a construction site and things will obviously get better...) still, i'm not complaining

Looks magic, really does.

ahh, had a fun surf this arvo and we just had the best meal we've eaten since we've been here - a vegie coconut milk curry. they cut up some coconuts to make it. i know that isn't earth shattering, but it's pretty cool to see people make stuff from basic ingredients
and someone just busted out some turtle shell they found and everyone's cutting thin strips, bending them in hot water and polishing it up with cigarette ash. spookette just scorred a groovy new pair of earings
we're going to get back to oz wearing turtle shell jewelry and seem like total hippies

haha, how long you out there for Spook?

6 months, depending on visa extensions/visa runs and any other issues. probably 8 months next year if everything works out.
been digging all day, making a massive septic tank. stopped for lunch, had a swim and a rest and then back at it this arvo. it's nice doing lots of different jobs

yeah it sounds like a good gig. You don7t mind the sweat and hard work when the rewards are great!! Just living in such an environment would be reward enough never mind the actual pleasure you get seeing something you made take shape

I though the isolation would be an issue, I could only imagine the logistics involved in living somewhere like that.
How are the cravings going mate? I had a lovely cold chocolate milkshake today, my wife enjoyed a latte and the kids had banana spit ice cream, tonight we are having big juicey steaks on the BBQ with loads of fresh salad


Tell us more about the waves Spook. Many boats been through yet?

absolutely fabulous.
great to see Spook and Spookette are doing well in Mentawai =)
i love indonesia, haven't been back there for many years.
keep us updated with your latest news with fabulous photos.

would be nice to see big versions of these 3 photos but small versions are still great desu.

=>
Paul surfing out the front at Pitstops,
Spook crusing at sunset, and at Crystals

ok, i'll post bigger pics next time!
isolation is a bit of a factor, but having internet and being able to make calls on skype helps. at the moment i am enjoying the bland diet of rice, vegies, fish and chilli. we have coke and beers (sometimes) but i'm feeling good. we're going home in august for a week for a wedding. no doubt i'll make my mum cook me all sorts of comfort food

have only really been surfing out the front at pitstops, because we've been too busy working to hunt other waves (that will be later when we have guests). there's lots o spots though, plus some secret ones we'll only take mates to...
had one or two days in the past month with some boats here. other than that we surf it to ourselves everyday. it's not world class at pitstops (more a fun playful wave) but i've had more good tubes than i can remember. 100m away is a scary world class left (e-bay) that needs a bit of swell to come alive

e-bay is awesome... Hope you score that!

pics pics pics
a couple of shots of me at beng bengs last night. we were the only ones out, so pretty chuffed about that


am starting to go slightly stir crazy out in the islands. travelling through the 3rd world in one thing. staying put and trying to make things happen is another. phew..... but just got to keep realising that for all the negatives there are way more positives.

it just seems that the positives (good waves, tropical islands etc etc) and the negatives (managing staff, meeting deadlines, finishing projects, trying to educate people about hygiene and rubbish etc) are both pretty extreme. so i go from being ecstatic to soooo frustrated and then back again

everyone here sees things so different so it's a challenge to try and understand their point of view and then to try and make things better. an example - there's heaps of flies near our crew house,so they spray bug spray everywhere. i keep trying to point out that they shouldn't throw foodscraps out just behind the house and they should burn rubbish regularly, but it's about as effective as bangin my head against a wall.

i must sound like some soft whingeing westerner, but at the end of the day we're paying the staff to build and run a resort for western tourists, and yet it seems impossible to get simple things into place. the big boss is back from the mainland in a few days, i'll be glad to hand the reins over to him!

aaaaarrgghh, i'm off to go dig a septic tank, then for a sunset surf

photos like that make me want to take up surfing!

hang in there spook, make the most of it while you can, when you back cooped up in a office you'll wish you were back in the islands.

those waves look freaking awesome!!! **Droooool**

no no no, it should look like:

thats bout how I feel looking at those waves

Those Indos can frustrate the shite out of you. I sympathize with ya Spook. Sometimes you feel like strangling them, it's a different world over there. I've always found them to be very good natured and friendly people but also very simple.

That wave looks sick. Next time you paddle out in ya boardies, think of me zipping up my 3 mm steamer with a cold breeze snapping around my ears.

yep, totally agree. i just need to get into the rhythm of it all a bit more. cultural differences are always so hard.
and then this evening everyone has been super cool. faaark, i was just having a tough afternoon. working, eating, and living together makes it tough, but we're getting there!
i'm living on a tropical island for heaven's sake, i just need to keep reminding myself that!

indeed you are, so was this guy!





and he lasted 1500 days alone with a volleyball but no surfboard, I think you can last a few more..

loving the pics mate.

I'd love to try surfing, every time I see pics like that I think,
"right, this year I am DEFINITELY learning to surf"

We'll wait and see if it ever happens though!!

Just remember, they work on Jam Karet. (Rubber Time).
and there are a lot of cultural differences.
You will need to understand what those differences are.

the cultural differences are quite large and they see things a lot differently than we do.

I used to spend most of my time at the warungs just talking all day.
You soon get to know what is going on.

Nice waves..

Welcome to Indonesia with your hassles!! Can send you stir crazy the way they do things. Don't let it get to you though.. or you may end up leaving early. (I'll be ready to move in as a temp!)

A place I stayed at used to have ant problems, so they doused the WOODEN cottages in kero to get rid of the ants! Only in Indo...

Beng bengs looks mighty fun and sessions you get like that by yourselves gotta seal the deal.

we use diesel on the floor to get rid of flies. i now associate the smell of petrol with cleanliness and actually quite like it.
everything is good now. my mate and his indo colleague are back on the island and all the crew have lifted their game. really positive vibes and heaps of great stuff is getting completed.

yeah, jam karet, i'm down with that. i can happily sit around for hours talking, playing dominoes, all that. and i know that we have very different approaches to work. i think everyone just downed tools when the big bosses went back to the mainland.

enough of that thgouh... the surf has been cracking. some nice tubes tonight and am throwing down some icy bintangs. everything is siiiiick and i wouldn't trade places with anybody

Tubes, Bintang, domino, laying around....................prick!

>>A place I stayed at used to have ant problems, so they doused the WOODEN cottages in kero to get rid of the ants! Only in Indo...

thats mad!!! Hope nobody lights up...

"Hello Mister"

That did my head in after months in the jungle!

Jam Karet... live by it!
(rubber time for the non indo speakers)

How is the Bahasa going Spook. I got a lot more out of my Indo visits when I got better with langauge. Often there was a logical explanation for what was going on (often not) It's a great langauge to pick up. Very easy

yeah mantas you are right.
I did so much better than my mates because I spoke (or tried to speak) the lingo.
Indo is way easy compared to other languages.. and if you get it you won't get skunkt!

The only problem with that Indo is your mates are constantly asking you.
"What did he say" and "Mantas, tell him this......"

I actually did a course early on and just went from there. I remember one day in Timor, I was sitting down with an old guy and having a conversation in Indonesian about his time as a POW and he also told me about the day he saw a huge Japanese squadran fly over head.Two hours later Darwin was bombed.
It was a fascinating insight to his life that I wouldn't have got if I didn't speak Indo.

fabulous.

more pics pics pics pls

Have you spent a bit of time in Indo Ewok?

Spook, what is the season like down there? Whats avg size? Those just above look like like 4-5ft. How big are the biggest sets?

Thats a beautiful wave - does it close out to the right?

CB you'll find most waves in Indo are either left or right. Not a great deal of peaks.
Up there in the mentawais they get surf like spooks pics pretty consistently. Alot of perfect 3-8ft waves. Powerful, but due to the distance the swell travels, it's usually picture perfect rather than RAW power like Sth OZ or Hawaii. Over 8ft it changes though...

Id be so happy to ride a wave like that right now, Indo. Thats picture perfect, breaking lovely, nice lip to play on, does it barrel over or just break? Guess that just depends on the (type of reef) break/size factor huh? If I could have waves like that year-round (maybe a bit bigger), then I'd be in heaven. That looks freaking sweeeeeeeet

Unless it's really crap with onshore winds then most Indo reefs will throw out crazy pits over razor sharp coral reef that is often as deep as you chin chin may be long!
Those pics are suuuper fun, though from a different angle would have most people shiiting themselves in fear of the reef.

I am off 4WDing to get some waves hopefully in a few days.. sick of job hunting.. spook you need another trench digger???

my friend is there now - fat aussie guy named Tom - anyonecome across him ?- he said he was living on a boat - but surely would have to touch land at some point ?

yup just only a bit, 2 weeks @ airport reef.
wanted to go to nusa dua though.
ah, i think i had your board with me at that time, "manta"

>ah, i think i had your board with me at that time, "manta" <

Yeah, I actually invented those years ago as contraceptive implants for elephants but they didn't bloody work (obviously why there are so many elephants running around now).
I threw one away into the ocean and, what do you know, someone used it as a boogy board and the rest is history.

I used to surf airports a bit, usually when Kuta reef was too crowded. Kuta reef actually cranks when you get a good swell on it.

Nusa Dua is pretty crap.. I think we've had this convo here before..
2 weeks and no Bukit? OMG were you hiding in a cave Ewok!

any of you SA-FA-ZU watching the Billy pro @ Chopes?

N is not flat!..?
oops wrong thread
thought i heard that convo somewhere before

my friends were doing some "save the ocean" kinda event long time ago, so cleaning and picking up garbages and then yes hiding and escaping..

"Chopes" the bar? my gf and i were not allowed to drink, under age at that time =)

Saw Jimmy getting pitched.
The waves not as big as previous years.

Ewok-Chopes Tahiti.....get with the program

shes not a surfer girl

lol tahiti chopes!!
thank u mantas and sorry indo, "chopes", first i thought of chups (chupa chups) and then i figured it's a name of some famous bar in bali or something.. my bad..
bukit, i'll remember when i go next time indo

Ewok- I think you need to go and read the 45 pages of the 'Surfers' thread. The entire brains trust of SJ surfing is laid out for you. What's not in there is not worth knowing.