Nate Florence was pleased, to say the least, at the size of the swell at Lance’s Right. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Way back in the early ’90s, when Friends was just debuting, Titanic was breaking box office records, and grunge was changing the music scene, an Australian guy named Lance Knight met another guy named Pak Hosein. That fortuitous meeting would lead to the discovery of HT’s, also known as Lance’s Right. It’s one of the best waves on the planet, and Nate Florence recently scored it about as good as it gets.
Knight, at the time, was a little down and out, having lost his job and his girlfriend in a one-two punch. According to surf lore, he decided he’d, as Australians say, go on a walk-about and look for waves in a spattering of islands just south of Nias. Needing a place to stay, Knight was lucky enough to be welcomed into Hosein’s home.
“At first, I was surrounded by children until my eye caught sight of a tall, regal-looking Indonesian gentleman walking towards me offering me his hand,” Knight told Surfing World. “I shook hands with Pak Hosein and because I couldn’t speak much Bahasa all I could do was tap my chest and say, ‘Nama saya Lance,’ (My name is Lance) and pointed to the surf. Before I knew anything else, Pak had organized my backpack, supplies, and my surfboard being carried off up the beach to his house where I was introduced to his wife and surrounded by what appeared to be the whole village. After evicting their children from their room, I was shown a very tiny bed.”
That home looked out on a then unnamed wave. Knight knew immediately it was something special and almost immediately paddled out. As the story goes, it had never been surfed before. Lance spent the next two weeks surfing 6-8 foot waves all by himself before meeting with Martin Daly and his crew on the famous Indies Trader. Although it might be up for debate, it could be said that that was the real beginning of the Mentawai surf boom.
Now, of course, it’s a well-traveled surf zone. Nate Florence is a well-traveled surfer, so it makes sense that, when a swell popped up on the forecast that looked just about perfect for one of the world’s most perfect waves, he made sure to be there. And when he got there, he was pleasantly surprised, to say the least.
