JANUARY 28TH UPDATE

First, a quick note: we’re going to do the update a little differently this time, as we have so many new photos. We’re going to do them thumbnail style at the bottom of the page so we can fit them all in and give them all an adequate description. But there are tons, so be sure to check them out.

Onto the update: Scuzz is finally back and settled, and he sent the Slayer a long update for the first time since he returned from his second trip. Scuzz and Christina have spent the last few days organizing supplies to be loaded into trucks and boats to get out to Simeulue, the location from which Scuzz just returned. The Hotel Batang Arau in Padang continues to serve as an information center and gathering place, facilitating communication with those that are currently out in the islands and allowing those that are here in Padang to meet and organize further missions.

Tom Plummer and Dr. Ben called from Sinabang (southwest Simeulue) today and let us know that our cargo boat had made it out there safely, and they gave us great feedback that the supplies were a HUGE help. They are stoked. In addition, Andi Buddha organized the delivery all the medicine from Medan, which also arrived in Sinabang safely. Tom and Dr. Ben came up to Simeulue from Padang aboard the Santa Lucia, yet another surf charter boat. They are now gaining info in Sinabang, liaising with the local government and meeting with the other organizations in Simeulue to pave the way for the longer-term efforts of SurfAid. After focusing heavily on Nias, SurfAid is now moving to get cover Simeulue and run their clinics there.

Alyssa (Scuzz’s little sister, AKA “Lil”) is now in Singapore doing her visa run and will be flying to Medan tomorrow to meet up with Jude Barrand of SurfAid and fly out to Sinabang with her. They will meet up with Tom and Ben and head north to Alafan Bay. For the record, the bay referred to as Alafan is also known as Alaman, Alasan, Alavan or Alunam depending on the chart – sorry if we confused any map watchers out there. Alyssa’s medical knowledge, as well as her knowledge and contacts in the area, will be really useful to SurfAid, and they are stoked to have her aboard.

Jude has been on Nias lately working with SurfAid in their clinics, which have involved check ups, immunizations and educating the locals about disease. Jude said Herman was an enormous help, so we are proud to have brought Herman to them. We informed the folks at SurfAid that the people in Nias don’t really speak Bahasa Indonesian, especially when it comes to medical references, and hence you needed a local interpreter. We suggested utilizing the local beach kids at Lagundri, who could definitely use the work. It would be good for them to see how lucky they really have it, rather than relying on constant “hard luck hassling” to all guests that visit the famous bay. We hope in the long term this happens. It would be great for all. SurfAid has really stepped it up lately and has been trying to pull all of Padang together to work as one. As mentioned earlier, they financed our last effort and have been in talks today with the “SSRO” about joining with them.

The SSRO is the “Sumatran Surfzone Relief Operation.” They are a classic mix including the George Brothers (Sam and Matt), Bill Sharp and the original Indo doctors they had on the first trip. It also includes Lil (Alyssa), AK (Adam Kobayashi), Timmy Turner, Mama Timmy, Wera, Dustin, Christian, Sparksey & Co. Sorry if we've forgotten any of you guys - you have done an AMAZING effort. This team is full of characters. They are all gung-ho and have lit a fire under everyone’s arse. They followed their hearts and have accomplished some really remarkable things. Their next mission is, among other things, to distribute canoes to the most affected areas. They’ve already ordered more than a dozen canoes from Siberut (northernmost island in the Mentawais), which is great because it also adds to their economy.

To all you guys, thanks a lot for all the kind words you’ve said about Scuzz, Christina, AK, Lil, and Sumatran Surfariis in general. We really appreciate the nice press you’ve given us in the following sites, among others: http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/showflat.php?Number=662099 and http://www.surfingthemag.com/gallery/ssro_tsunami_relief/gallery1. And, I’m just typing what Scuzz wrote, but “thanks to the Slayer (that’s me), for keeping the world updated as he stays up all night working on the site.”

Care International and the French/Swiss team of Doctors Without Borders are also working in Simeulue, and they have a wealth of knowledge and resources to be put to good use. While in Sinabang, Scuzz worked with them and gave all the information he could and all the contacts they needed. They were very happy, and Scuzz was relieved to see such a big organization with such huge funding and length of time to be spent on Simeulue. They didn’t have the local contacts or access to boats, so it worked perfectly and we traded information in what was needed immediately. This was then relayed to Christina who pulled it all together in Padang, as she has done from Day 1 of our relief effort. She is still here, working FULL-ON on things such as keeping books and/or loaning money to Quiksliver, the Trader 2, SurfAid, Sumatran Surfariis, The Hotel Batang Arau, SSRO, Rip Curl, Odek, and IDEP. She’s also coordinating a group of filmmakers, Tom Henley's group, and the rest of the Padang expats. She’s been absolutely amazing. The two groups, Care International and Doctor’s W/O Borders, are now also coordinating with SurfAid, through the good work of Jason Brown, Tom and Dr. Ben.

Tom Henley brought in some unbelievable footage of a beach on the mainland of Thailand. It hasn’t been sold to any TV station and will be historic in its scientific value. It shows how the water began to slowly drain for about 5 minutes before the first tsunami wave. The ocean appears super clean and calm, but WAY lower tide than ever before. Its sort of surreal as it shows people casually doing their thing on the beach and in the water, then from way out you see the wave coming. It starts to break way out in a really surfable peak, looking like a bombie in Hawaii. Sam George called it “Alligators”. The wave then surged further in and did its thing. To see what became of the pristine clean water is shocking, and the way the water whirl-pooled will be really interesting to scientists. It’s both fascinating and horrifying.

Back to our relief efforts: while in Simeulue, Scuzz traveled along the west coast by motorbike with the military head to check out the damage there. He found the worst hit areas to be the kecematan (province) of Teupah Barat. Of the 18 villages in this province, 13 were really badly damaged, with about 80% of homes either gone or rusak berat (damaged badly). They talked with village heads and assessed how they could best get the supplies in despite the damaged roads. There is a lot of damage to houses, bridges and many major structures in this province. The people said they could not stand up when the quake hit and were thrown down to the ground. Those that tried to stand back up were thrown down again until eventually everyone pretty much just sat or laid down for the duration. The damage to the bridges means big trucks are having trouble getting supplies to much of the west coast. Scuzz and his gang had to be very careful on some bridges even on motorbikes, and they had to get off and walk quite often.

The village heads informed them of the best places to drop supplies via the water, and also told them how a lot of supplies were going “missing” through Sinabang. Unlike Nias, which has 2 main ports, every single place they visited on the whole island of Simeulue is fed by Sinabang. So for these more remote villages, they are finding their usual weekly or twice-weekly supply deliveries of rice are not coming as often, or with less quantity, due to the overall taxing of resources there. During his travels, Scuzz also met with the British telecom, whose representatives were out there sweating profusely trying to repair the communication systems of the local cartels (telephone offices).

The island’s government in Sinabang is concerned about too much aid being given to Alafan and not enough being distributed evenly across the whole island. Scuzz says this is fair enough and a usual Indo response, but he feels this will end up evening out. But based on his surveying and observations, the Alafan kecematan is where the real urgency lies due to its remote location and its state of virtual total destruction. Tony aboard the cargo boat Sari Menjadi called Wednesday from Gunungsitoli on his way north to Alafan with a 50-ton load of supplies that Christina, Andi and Charlie arranged in Padang. They should arrive in Alafan tonight or tomorrow. They have, among other things, 40 gensets onboard, which will provide power and light to these villages.

The task now is thinking more long-term about this area. Local villages in the area of Alafan Bay have started to rebuild and have moved to higher ground on the slopes of the surrounding hills. This is an obvious reaction to having their villages destroyed by the ocean and being fearful of being swept away by another wave if they remain in the low-lying regions. But, in the long run, we feel education about what exactly happened, and how to prepare for something similar in the future, is needed in these areas. Indos like the area around their house to be clean, so they often cut down trees and shrubs near their homes in an effort to be neat. This tsunami took down or ripped up a lot of the remaining hardwoods and growth that wasn’t already supplanted from their efforts to be neat, and much of what was left after the tsunami is now being cut down to be used for rebuilding means. The result is their hillsides will become barren and unstable. The hardwoods have deep reaching roots that hold the soil in place, and in many areas of Indo Scuzz has seen them cut down these beautiful old trees and plant coconut palms in their place. Coconut palms are more of a cash crop, but also have very short roots. Right now is the dry season and all is ok, but as the rains of the wet season come in, it is highly likely that there will be mass landslides and all the problems that go with that. We hope we can inform them of this and work toward a better solution to prevent another potential disaster.

Another problem is water. The islands have a water table of fresh water. The fresh water is lighter than the salt water and hence sits above the salt water underground. Amazingly, this all rises and drops with the tide. The wells these people use are quite shallow and hence all fresh. But with this problem and with outside uneducated aid coming in, there have been cases of people drilling deep wells and using pumps to pump out large amounts of water. This pulls up the salt water and contaminates the fresh water table, in a lot of cases for the long term. This has happened in Aceh lately and must be really watched here.

Another problem Scuzz saw, especially around the west coast of Simeulue, was the fact that the reef had risen so much that the little rivers or keyholes (a deep spot or slot in the reef) where locals used to pull their boats in at night are now gone. Most Indo fisherman will pull their canoes up above the high tide mark after fishing and bring their catch into the village. Then in the morning it’s easy for them to pull it down onto the beach and out thru the keyhole, or down into the riverbank and out thru the river. Now these rivers and keyholes are all closed up, and in their place is up to 100 meters of sharp coral, even at high tide. So to drag their canoes back and forward over this each time they fish will be a massive drama and shorten the lives of their canoes. In regards to the bigger motorized boats (called “robins”), this will just be not possible. The Indos are extremely resourceful, and in situations where westerners would get upset or complain, they just deal with it and find an answer. So they will survive and figure out a system in the long run, but it will be a major hurdle in the immediate future.

A good example of their calmness under fire came when Scuzz and AK interviewed a local in Langi, the main village of the Alafan kecematan. This guy was out on his canoe fishing for udang (crayfish) the morning of the 26th. He said he heard a strange noise and thought the engine that powered his compressor was damaged. He looked and saw that it wasn’t, and he instantly knew that it was an earthquake. So he said he went down to get his udang and when he got to the ocean floor saw that it was boiling and bubbling up. He said the current then got very strong and he came up to the surface. He said that he then started going up and down over the waves and the current was still strong. Scuzz asked if he was scared for his family in the village and he said no, because he didn’t realize it was so big. When he got back and saw the devastation, he raced in to ask if anyone had died and the people told him “no, but someone gave birth”. In the panic and in the race to run up hill, the strain had induced contractions in the pregnant woman, and she successfully gave birth on the hill, right then and there.

Scuzz and AK also interviewed an older man who has already built a 2-story house, and now has all his family and sisters living in it. Though they estimated he was well over 50, Scuzz said he was sporting a rippled, cut body and a really calm strong presence. The man said he built the house virtually by himself, using the rubble around what used to be the village. Unreal.

On Thursday we got a call today from Samantha at IDEP. She’s now back in Bali, working out of their headquarters. She called to get Scuzz’s opinion on communications around Aceh and what to use in regards to satellite phones or high frequency radios. This is a huge job and it shows the respect that the whole world organization has given Sam and IDEP. She is now pretty much in charge of pulling the whole communication system of all the Aceh aid workers together. Petra of IDEP also sent us her very informative Tsunami Relief Update (#11). It discusses their extensive efforts to support the survivors of Calang and ways you can donate to their cause. It’s a long, but very interesting read, and you can check it out here.

It’s awesome to have worked with such inspirational people that have given up a month (so far) of their lives for others. No one here has slept much, done anything for fun or had time off during this, and it’s all been 100% worth it. We feel it’s a real boost to the world’s good energy.

We’ll have lots more soon. Tomorrow the SSRO plan to depart again, so Lil and SurfAid will be shooting back the latest info from the north of Simeulue. Tony will arrive and start distributing supplies and our team of Indos here in Padang, so we can finally start pulling together the Southern Cross for its first charter on the 5th of February. We are still a charter business, after all.

Terimah Kasih to everyone and take care!