These are some of the waves that I dreamt about finding when I was a little kid. Travelling to new place to find surf is often exciting but also a slow process. We would sometimes not surf for about 2 weeks until finding a wave to surf which makes that first surf all the sweeter.
1.) Rivermouth wave in the mountains – Taiwan
This wave saved us from almost having a month long trip and not finding any surf. Travelling by bicycle is hard and having to look for surf is even harder, combine the two and you have to be pretty lucky to find some decent surf.
We had just come down from 3 days in the mountains of Taiwan and hit the nearest beach and it’s dead flat, like walk out and not even get your knees wet flat. We laughed it off and spend the day riding down the coast and then camping on the beach. The surf is still a weak 1ft and we keep on cycling the next day. Its overcast and a little breezy, the road winds into the mountains as they fall directly into the ocean, we go through a few tunnels and then a few 200m climbs. By now the rain has started and its misty, humid and hot, but no wind. We hit the coast and its still small about 1 or 2 ft. We have lunch, and keep on going, our spirits are down, but as we round a headland we look down and see a river mouth, with A-frames breaking everywhere. Rian and I can’t believe our eyes. I scrabble for the camera to get our reactions for the tv show, we make a plan to head straight down there to surf. We camped for 2 nights and surfed about 4 sessions.
Rivermouth break we often surfed by ourselves or with local surfers.
2.) Little Bingin, Alternative to Scar Reef, Sumbawa
While cycling for 5 weeks from Bali to Sumbawa, my turning point to get back to Bali was Scar Reef. I surfed here for 4 days, with the wave itself being a long 500m paddle out to the reef. It was about 4ft and quite crowded, when another bodyboarder from NSW Australia mentioned on the other side of the reef pass there was a small left hander that breaks. I followed him over there and it was a lot smaller about 2ft but perfect little barrels. I surfed it alone for about 1 hour the next morning and then with him from another 2 before the wind blew it out. Definitely a fun alternative to the hectic scar reef.
Download the surf movie Sendiri to see the full story of scar reef and many other indonesian waves.
3.) Point Break – Java
During our first trip across Indonesia, the trip that started eat.sleep.surf. After our visa run to singapore we headed to the south coast of Java and stumbled upon a point break with a few surfers that were sleeping at a homestay.
In the hot humid morning during Ramadan the road had a fork in it, we stopped to discuss which way to go. Right was a dirt road along the coast and left was the busier road up into the mountains. We were about to go left when someone saw our boards and pointed right while saying “Surfing”. If a local knows there is surfing one way, there will definitely be some surf. We headed off down the road and a group of old men were relaxing having a smoke when they saw us. Laughing and joking they pointed us in the direction over a cable bridge and through a village. We saw a few surfboards and new we found the spot. The wave was a half decent pointbreak with some barrelling sections. We stayed for 2 nights at $15 per night with 3 meals a day. Paradise.
Here is a video from our 4 part documentary about the wave. Buy the full documentary here
4.) Deperations – Fiji
During my one week stay in Fiji we surfed 7ft cloudbreak which was really scary and an real eye opener to big pacific ocean swells. After the swell dropped off to a barely surfable 1ft at cloud break. Our boat driver Ben knew another spot an outer reef that broke on small days. 20min later we were there and surfing 3ft peaks by ourselves.
Here is a video of the trip and some surf from that location.
5.) Bintangs – Mentawai Islands
During out epic 3.5 month trip across Indonesia we ventured out to the Mentawai islands for 7 days. We stayed at Lances right and then ventured over to lances left the one morning. Lances was extremely crowded and Jessy our friend suggested taking the boat to Bintangs saying we would love it, this slabby wave perfect for bodyboarding. We jumped in and saw the wave it was only about 2ft and we thought nothing of it. It was a true slap, water coming from very deep and sucking off the ledge to make one keg of a wave. We both got thrown over a few times but it was just a fun size to surf. Definitely an unexpected wave from most of the 5 star waves in the island chain.
