For my last week in the Mentawais, I went to check out the remote southern side of Sipora, where a world famous right named Lance’s Right, also known as Hollow Trees (HT), was located. I followed three French surfers for a 3 hour boat ride to travel from Tua Pejat to southern Sipora to stay in a locally owned home stay directly overlooking HT’s.
On our arrival, we were greeted by the mechanical beauty of HT’s. With it’s immaculately peeling waves from one end to the other, it was almost as if Kelly Slater’s artificial wavepool was somehow placed on this remote end of the island. Unfortunately, the tide was way too low and surfing immediately would be dancing daintily with death. After waiting several hours for the tide to fill in, we eagerly paddled out once it was safe enough.
I waited patiently for the small ones, while the French surfers easily and confidently took the head high and overhead waves rolling in.
After experiencing several intimate encounters with the reef on some slow takeoffs, I realised that I was completely out of my depth at this surf break. Even if my pop up and line were good, I failed to generate sufficient speed to beat the peeling walls of water. This meant that even if I took off successfully, the wave would knock me out and roll me onto the reef uncontrollably. This was the first break, where I experienced that popping up successfully wasn’t sufficient to get you out of the wave safely.
In contrast, watching the French surfers effortlessly take off and generate speed down the line to outrun the peeling wall made me acutely aware of my skill gap.
This was already made apparent at Suicides, Telescopes and Scarecrows. But the nature of this break, beautiful and admirable in its beauty and consistency made my inability to surf it all the more acutely painful. This break was realistically at my target skill level, not like stupidly dangerous Suicides nor some behemoth like Pipeline. Those were definitely out of my league.
The realistic nature of my target to surf HT’s compelled me to want to be able to surf at a level suitable for it. But there was doubt and uncertainty at the back of my mind. Every single wave I attempted was dicing with danger, and nothing said it more than when I kooked a takeoff and bump my head gently on the reef. This alone was sufficient to draw some blood, and a bigger wipeout would have undoubtedly been worse.
But the nature of this break, beautiful and admirable in its beauty and consistency made my inability to surf it all the more acutely painful.
Unfortunately, my last two weeks were pretty uneventful in terms of swell. To make matters worse, strong winds were completely messing up HT’s and making it unsurfable. On these kinds of days, we rented the scooters and rode to the other side of the peninsular to check out the other breaks like Burgerworld and Lance’s Left.
The ‘roads’ on this side of Sipora were nothing but concrete walkways in various states of disrepair, further highlighting the pristine and relatively untouched beauty of our location, yet also reminding us of its remoteness and isolation.
Once the winds calmed down and a mild swell arrived, we eagerly paddled out to HT’s. My confidence at HT’s was growing and I was challenging myself to almost overhead waves now. No doubt they were scary, but the takeoffs felt amazing. The sense of satisfaction and adrenaline rush with every successfulslide down the face was borderline addictive. It was just unfortunate I couldn’t speed past the walls fast enough after taking off.
And with greater wave size, came greater consequences when I wiped out. I took off successfully on a head high wave, and as expected, I got knocked off by the lip and got trashed by the turbulence. I surfaced safely, but kicked my right shin against a coral head on the exact same spot as an old scab.
It was enough danger and adrenaline for me for the day, so I decided I had enough surfing and went onshore to clean the wound.
As I exited the water, it then dawned on me the wound was more serious than I thought. Somehow (and I still don’t understand how), brushing the reef ripped off a chunk of my skin and flesh from my right shin bone. The wound was relatively deep and about a 3/4 inch wide, with blood was just streaming out profusely.
As I walked to take a shower, I was literally leaving a trail of blood behind me. Up the stairs, across the verandah, into the bedroom and all across the bathroom as I showered off the saltwater. The bleeding was not stopping, and the only way to stop the flow was to keep my leg elevated and horizontal.
Fortunately (and I can’t emphasise this enough) one of the French surfers was a trained neurologist, and had brought along a surgical stitching kit. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a surgeon, meaning he was rusty at performing surgical procedures.
But hey, beggars can’t be choosers, especially when you’re on a remote island with no grid electricity and tarmac roads.
I asked the doctor if we could just pressure the wound to reduce blood flow and avoid the stitches, but I received a firm ‘No’.
‘But good thing you still have the flap attached, I can sew the wound close with it’, he said nonchalantly, while pressing the flap down repeatedly to see if it would plug the wound, blood continuing to ooze out while doing so. Phew, lucky me, I thought sarcastically.
Obviously we had no anaesthesia, but we had the next best thing available: Beers. Lots of them.
As I downed 3 cans, the French guys prepped the make shift surgical theatre, aka a bunch of headlamps and plastic chairs positioned in the right place. One for me, one for the doctor, one for my propped up leg and one for the surgical kit.
Feeling pretty dizzy and numb from all the beers, the good doctor began his work. As the curved surgical needle pierced my skin, I felt a tinge of pain, but it was bearable. We could see that the doctor wasn’t lying, he indeed looked slightly clumsy as he fumbled with the surgical needle and thread. The other two French surfers acted as our dynamic surgical lights, holding up the headlamps in the dark of the evening.
As he made the second stitch, I asked him, ‘When’s the last time you did this?’
He paused, looked up and answered, ‘Hmm, I’m not sure, maybe a more than a year ago…’, while unconsciously pulling the thread attached to my skin and flesh a tad too far away.
‘Oh, I see,’ I answered calmly, ‘now can you lower your hands so that you don’t pull my skin off?’
The other two French guys laughed as the doctor apologised and continued his handiwork.
The headlamps were beginning to attract bugs, and one or two of them landed dangerously close to my open wound. Fortunately, our real-time surgical lights also doubled up as bug killers and removed them as soon as they landed. It was absolutely gross to see them land and drown with wings fluttering in a pool of blood. But hey, island life, island paradise, you know.
It was a super surreal moment, a bunch of surfers drinking beers in the dusk while performing surgery as bugs swarmed the island style operating theatre. It was a serious yet light hearted moment, and we took a photo to commemorate the event with smiles on our faces.
It was absolutely gross to see them land and drown with wings fluttering in a pool of blood. But hey, island life, island paradise, you know.
That small accident brought my extended surf trip in Indonesia to a definite close. Strangely, I felt kind of relieved that I no longer had to surf. I was getting tired of surfing day in and day out, treating wounds, preventing infections, avoiding the reef, and just consistently pushing myself out of my comfort zone to push my limits and improve as fast as possible. This last month in Mentawai was a mental struggle as I had to psych myself into surfing after beating my body up over the past half a year.
As I rested over the next few days, I looked back at my past half a year with a deep sense of satisfaction. I had progressed from a near complete kook to being comfortable in head high waves, and nearly making it out of my first barrel.
As the days passed and I gradually drifted back to civilization, the fast boat back to Padang city, a flight to Kuala Lumpur, then arriving home, I could feel an itch began to grow…. Was it my wound getting infected?
Nah, it was just my body itching to surf again.
Looks like I’ve just started a life long love affair with surfing.
