How did you rate Roti mantas? Alot of crew say it's good but nothing fantastic.
I did a hell trip there by myself long story short the ferry from Kupang was late because of a big cyclone coming (they shouldn't have even left) and I rocked up to the losmen on Roti with no guests then the cyclone hit and for 7 days I was trapped. It was way too big and out of control to surf by myself (not surfable at all, even with a crew) so I waited for the ferry to come and each day it never did! Finally when it did I got the fark out of there and off to Sumba!

Did you hit up the caves in Timor Mantas? They were pretty fun.

haha. awesome trip indo. you guys ever check out east timor? i know the swell window is much smaller but it looks like it could sometimes get something?

I had a great trip there in 91. The waves were so so but I do remember sitting out there one day surfing 3 footers all by myself. We stayed with the village chief as there was no where else to stay. It was one of those 'before the crowds' kind of experiencess. My Bahasa was pretty good back then and I had a long conversation with an old guy who told me about the day the Japanese bombers flew over head on the way to bomb Darwin. He was also a prisoner of war and told me about his experiences with the Japs. I also remember climbing up a tree with a SW radio to listen to the 91 grand final.

Beautiful place and the people were really cool.
I did go to those under ground caves for a swim one day, is that what your talking about? There was a guy up there that brewed his own alcohol.

I like to go back with the kids but I think I'd be dreaming if I thought that it would be the same after 20000 surfers have been through.

Yeah the underground caves Mantas. We had a ball there!
I think T'land would be busier but not overly busy. Really only the one main wave to surf and so far from anywhere. Was nice back in 97 would have been great to surf there!

Spooks, I see you are back in the Islands and by the looks of things SLOTTING into the lifestyle with ease!

Damn some of those pics look good.

cheers indo. i tried to link some facebook pics into here last night but it didn't seem to be working.
about to head out for a surf now, will try again tonight...

hey hey
so i've been trying to link some pics from facebook t this thread, but have had zero joy. i'd like to post a bunch of pics but will have to settle for the ones below instead.
these are from the last two weeks in the mentawais. the waves have been fun if nothing off the hook. there have been some nuts sessions, but for the most part it's just been good.
not that im complaining. i'm happy as larry (whoever he is)
yeuw!

Arvo glass!

We are dying here and have been for months! Nothing really decent for a long long long long time.. Mantas, how have you guys been doing?

that bottom pic is my best mate, with the boys hooting him from the shoulder. haven't seen him for two years, so was pretty rad to nail that shot of him

Glad to see you haven't forgotten us Spook. Up to your usual standard too.

Nothing down here Indo. We've had a few southerly swells, usually onshore, interspersed by weeks of nothing.....
My ears are pricked, waiting for the sound of that cyclone swell forcast for tomorrow. It will have a lot of north in it so it may miss us alltogether. It's supposed to get massive up at the Goldy....

Might be just a shit fight @ the pass tomorrow unless I want to drive to the goldy..

just had a surf at sideshore rifles. swell was good, tide was good, wind was... not quite there. worth a shot though. i got reatrded drunk last night, was hungover as hell today and kind of rattled out there. it's so damn shallow.
the surf looks pretty sick for the next few days and there's no one around. but i got to go to padang to deal with some immigration stuff. very annoying. luckily there's room on some speedboats for both crossing, but still - 5 hour trip each way, 3 nights in padang just to get a photo taken and do some fingerprint. they already have my photo and fingerprints. boo.

Indo logistics. Five hours in a speed boat. Spose it beats 12+ hours on a ferry eh?

Nothing down here. Nothing! Forecast of 6-8 foot ENE ground swell has resulted in 1 foot wind swell. Disappointed.

Spook, he he, Love the ol' Indo red tape..
At least you will be able to pig out on Maskan Padang!

We have about 4-6ft but onshie.. VEry light now, and has cleaned itself up a bit. Might be a chance tomozz early. Otherwise, I"ll be chasing the fish.

just got into padang and the trip was an absolute breeze. using speedboats is so much better than the ferry. what was the better part of half a day and a night worth of travel is now just an afternoon.
stuffed my face with spicy bbq prawns and fish for dinner, staying in a nice (low-rise) hotel. it ain't so bad.

How's the city going? Rebuilding?

padang seems to be cranking along fine. i don't want to sound callous, as many people died in the quake, and many are still affected by it, but it appears to be business as usual.
there's a lot of building down, and some areas are pretty destroyed, but it's always been a hodge-podge 3rd world city an it doesn't seem much different now. just a bit more mess and carnage than usual.
pariaman (a small city to the north) is apparently much much worse, with something like 90% of buildings destroyed.
still, i'm kinda sketching out in padang. if i have to go into a big building, i'm keeping a firm eye on the exits. i won't go deep into the markets either (above the markets, the matahari department store is a crumbling wreck. people still operate stalls and shop there, but the don't really have any choice in the matter - what else can they do.
one of the big shopping malls - plaza andalas - looks to be almost repaired, but basically they've just plastered over the cracks and put a new lick of paint on it. i would be very very reluctant to go in there. it's already been badly damaged a couple of times

Cant blame you for being cautious Spook. I wonder what the casualty toll would be in places like Padang after a quake if they constructed their buildings like we do in the developed world. it comes down to economics in the end I guess.

Gotta love the Indo repair jobs!
Good to see the city is getting on!

Oh my god. That is amazing. Awesome awesome pictures. Great work.