Nias in all its glory. Photo: surfEXPLORE | John Seaton Callahan
The lightbulb went off as I was drooling over the Nias page in Low Pressure’s Stormrider Guide to the Indian Ocean. Awesome info, sick pics and pretty much everything a surf traveler – or dreamer – could need if they’ve got Indo on the mind.
But for me, it’s not just the incredible righthander at Lagundri Bay that sets my pulse racing. It’s the whole story of surfing on Nias.
That story first appeared in the Surfer’s Journal years ago. It was called ‘Custodians of the Point’ and was written by Kevin Lovett, one of the two guys who first sniffed the place out back in June, 1975. ‘Custodians’ stands tall as one of the best surf tales I’ve ever read, hands down a true surfing epic. Adventure? This was otherworldly. Not only did Lovett and his mate John Geisel find the sweetest righthander known on the planet at the time, they also carved out the first relationship with a baffled village community not far removed from medieval times, complete with megalithic spirit ceremonies and traveling shamans who hunt human heads for sacrificial purposes.
All this weirdness wasn’t just passing exotica for the fresh whiteboys. It damn near decided their final fate as they camped out on the point for those first three months. Strange people, hanging around. A vibe. Perfect, perfect righthanders. But a vibe. They didn’t know it, but Lovett and Geisel were lucky to escape alive that year, although tragically malaria struck down Geisel only months after they left Lagundri.
Lovett and friends returned the next year and, lo and behold, the weirdness continued. To this day no one really knows if the travelling hippy girl who had joined their group ever escaped the grasp of the creepy headhunter from up north – who needed a human head to bless an important construction project. And to top it all, Lovett didn’t even find out what was really happening until two decades later when he went back for the first time since 1976.
So yes, surf discovery, particularly in Indo, is fun, but it’s often way more than that, and Lovett’s story exemplifies the sheer rawness that can come with it.
Speaking of raw. Jungle camp by Lagundri Bay way back when. Photo: Kevin Lovett
That’s what switched the lightbulb on. How about a story series to accompany the guidebooks? A collection of all the best tales ever published about a region? You could read it on the road while you’re there, or getting there, or sitting at home wishing you were there. I ran my idea past the guys at Low Pressure publishing. They liked it. It was on.
First thing to do was find the stories. Of course, with a place like Indo, they are legion. So we set about choosing, then choosing favorites, and then we began asking authors and publishers permission to stick their work in our collection. Most – actually, all – were supportive. We talked to Kevin Lovett and The Surfer’s Journal, to Gerry Lopez – a man of many great Indo tales –, to DC Green – ditto – and numerous other respected surf writers and raconteurs. W also haggled with mainstream publishers of awesome books like Snowing in Bali by Katherin Bonella (it’s about surfers and drug smugglers in Bali. Faaark!), and the wonderful Hanabeth Luke whose harrowing tale of the 2002 Bali bomb Shock Waves detailed exactly what happened to her as she danced in the Sari as it exploded. We found old-time tales, like the first record of surfing in Kuta (1936), and even persuaded Professor Chris Goodnow, a globally respected genetic scientist and co-discoverer of the wave now known as Macaronis, to publish his story for the first time. We uncovered yarns from Aceh to Rote, some of them discovery stories, some beautiful, some hilarious, some about legends or lunatics, and some of them just super frigging gnarly.
One effect was to make us think more about context, about the impacts of our journeys. Over time, as the book came together, we realized that this book actually lays down a mosaic of snapshots that give us a rough history of surfing in Indo. And the timeline tells us heaps. It tells us that as surfers wandering through someone else’s territory, we can, do and will continue to have impacts, both planned and unforseen. Turns out we’re actually a salty-haired colonial invasion force and that’s maybe something we need to face up to, and consider our footprint accordingly.
Ultimately what we hope is that this story collection will enrich our view of the Indonesia surf travel experience, widen our awareness and, oh yeah, make you want to get out there, discover your own Lagundri, or at least get barrelled, and hopefully get back home in one piece.
Surf Stories Indonesia is the first collection of more we’ve got planned. And while we’re happy to dig out the old Surfer’s Journals, Paths and Tracks, and mine The Inertia archives to find the gold already published, we’d also love to hear from you – surfers, travellers, storied people as we all are. We’re working on Central America and the Caribbean next – so if you’ve got a tale to tell, consider getting in touch so we can share it with the world.
Excerpt from Custodians of the Point by Kevin Lovett (first published in The Surfer’s Journal Vol 7, No. 1)
