You can't see the crowds from here, but they're probably there. Photo: Callahan/surfEXPLORE
It was a really small day, but even small days in paradise can be good. We were in a sweet little part of the islands to pick up a small swell, and we knew of a little spot or two that might just be picking up little wedges, bumping the available swell into a little bit more than what it really was. It was south and it was secret back then. We powered down, going as fast as this ex-Japanese navy boat could take us.
When we started getting closer we could see little bumps from behind. All we needed, according to our gnarly old skipper (who subsequently died from consumption – not of the TB kind, but of the alcohol kind) was to see bumps. We started the froth going, and when there are ten surfers who simultaneously get their froth on it doesn’t matter how big the boat is, because everything degenerates into a free-for-all chaos. Fins, leashes, wax, suncream. Testicles and boardshorts, Vaseline and rashvests. There were some other guys in the line-up already.
As we approached we could see that there were three guys in the water. We all knew the rules – three – three – four. Send three guys out, then another three, and then when some of the original three as well as the other surfers started finishing off their surf then the last four could proceed.
We were frothing though, and none of us could decide who was going to get first shift, and who was going to have to wait it out. As we were trying to puzzle it out, trying to be decent and fair and democratic, one of our crew, a big lummox of a chap obviously called Moose grabbed his board and dived into the drink. We all looked at each other and dived off, right behind him. It was a sudden and total loss of decorum, as none of us wanted to be the last fucks left sun-tanning on the boat. As we approached the waves, the three guys already in the water looked on in disgust as ten frothing surfers sprinted for the take-off zone. One fellow, a Neanderthalic with dreadlocks, looked at us, and as soon as we were all within earshot he said to us in a very loud but even voice, “Guys, seriously, what’s the point?’
What is the point? What’s the point of spending lots of hard-earned cash and a good deal of time to travel to one of the remotest spots ever (as far as 100kms due west of Sumatra can be) to be confronted with a boat load of rude people? What if there are four such boats, and what if three of them are Brazilian boats and the other one is full of Hawaiian surfers? The thing is, it’s much worse than that. The stories filtering back from some of the best surf spots in the world is one of absolute crazy crowds one week, and desolation the next, but the crowded weeks are totally dysfunctional. Slater and friends hit the Ments a few moths ago with the Surfer mag and Momentum crew to find 12 boats perched around small Bankvaults. “Why travel that sort of distance to have the same crowds as small Lowers,” one of the surfers was heard to say on viewing the situation. With the absolute proliferation of land camps in the Playgrounds area it has got infinitely worse, with crowds at all time highs without many boats around. Land camps like Kandui have been around for a while and have been operating cleanly, but another camp has opened on the same island, another camp on an island across the bay, and yet another around the corner at one of the best lefts. E-Bay has a camp, as does Hideaways, with rumours of 60 beds at one of the camps, excluding the staff quarters. Where does the lead to in a zone where there are a finite number of waves?
