Sumatran Surfariis - Surfing Indonesia: Mentawais, Telos, Hinakos, Nias, and beyond...

FEBRUARY 2ND UPDATE

**Thank you to AK for all the photos.

As the surf season approaches, we are gradually trying to make our way back to business as usual and the goal of finding empty perfect tropical lineups, but it is difficult as so much is still happening in the affected areas of Northern Sumatra. Our aid effort in Padang has been really amazing. It’s been great experience that has really helped the people who had their lives turned upside down, and it’s also helped to spur a whole lot of bigger agencies into gear. We have been able to do this because of a lot of the readers of this site. Thanks so much for all the support - it really has been an incredible energy behind us and pushed us on. The aid updates may start to come a little less frequently, but we invite you to keep checking back, as we never feel like we’ll TRULY be finished helping the relief effort as long as we’re continuing to travel in these waters.

Now, onto new information since our last update: After coordinating with CARE International and SurfAid in Sinabang (southern Simeulue), Scuzz spoke with Alyssa (Scuzz’s lil’ sis) and Jude (of SurfAid) for a long while on Saturday about their upcoming Sunday morning mission. There were completely sloppy seas with strong winds on Saturday, yet these two non-maritime women took 2 boats around the bottom of Simeulue to distribute goods to this area. In addition, they are on a mission to gather new information for others to use in the near future. This area has not really been visited yet by sea, and it’s much more shallow and tricky to navigate a boat any day, let alone after a major movement which makes many charts inaccurate. These girls are chargers, indeed.

Earlier, we organized for the girls to do an early morning motorbike run out to the west coast to check out the ocean conditions, plus find a local fisherman to bring back. We also organized for them to let the local village head (kepala desa) know that we would be coming around with 2 boats full of supplies to distribute, and they asked if he could he send out his local canoes and robins that had survived the tsunami to help bring in the goods.

The cargo boat we had filled with SurfAid’s donations was originally chartered to provide cargo to the main town of Sinabang for distribution to other boats and overland. But the other boats had already moved north, and the land route had only been covered to a point. The damage to many of the bridges made it too risky to get further north on land, so the girls were left with a real mission. Scuzz spoke to the boat’s owner and let him know that this was for "bantuan" (basically translates to “help”), and that could we do this by boat with some assistance. He was amazing, as a lot of locals have been, and he didn’t hassle or hesitate to say, “Yes, lets go!”

The girls were awesome. Everything went smoothly, as many locals met the gals upon arrival. A couple of local fisherman came onboard to work around the reefs and provide guidance to the nearby villages. They continued to drop off more supplies the next day, as they continued north, surveying the area.

When Scuzz spoke to Alyssa, she said that Jude did a fantastic job surveying the west coast of Simeulue, and Jude found the area of Salang to the worst hit. Specifically, Alyssa mentioned the village Nesehai (sp?) was particularly badly hit. She went as far as to say it was worse off than the north bay of Alasan (which we’ve covered in depth in recent updates). Alyssa informed us their main income came from its rice paddies, with about 80% of these people living off this crop. This is now all gone. The other 20% of their sustenance comes from fishing, and with their fleet pretty much wiped out they are devastated. She said they have moved their whole community 3 kilometers inland, and they have nothing. We brought them educational supplies and helped them set up a new school, among other things.

The girls then moved north and met up with the Indies Trader 2 and SurfAid doctors back in Alasan. Alyssa and Jude helped provide medical assistance, and anything else they could to do to help, whenever possible. The SurfAid folks have been doing a great job immunizing and have treated many people, and there are some amazing stories of the doctors’ efforts circulating around town. Alyssa also said the Jakarta branch of Helen Keller Team was amazing, distributing vitamins and giving love and energy.

Scuzz spoke to Alyssa again briefly Wednesday night, and said the SurfAid doctors have come back to Sinabang. She also said that she really wanted to get back out to Salang to distribute more goods to their villages. She may jump on with Matt George and the gang of the Sumatran Surfzone Relief Operation again. These guys can’t be given enough credit. Guys like the George brothers, Bill Sharp, Timmy Turner, Mama Timmy, Wera, Christian, Dustin, Sparksey and several others in this mix have been a great example of unselfish people giving back to the people who’ve given them so much for years. As mentioned in earlier updates, they are working on bringing canoes and robins north, and they want to have these canoes built in Siberut to help fuel their economy as well.

Speaking of good examples, one most influential and proactive individuals we’ve seen in action is Robert Wilson of Rip Curl Indonesia. Robert has led by example and gotten to many of the worse hit areas first. He was at his home in Noosa Head, Australia when the tsunami hit, and he quickly realized that a simple monetary donation would not be enough. Soon after he was in Indo organizing large cargo boats like the KM Sumber Rejeki and KM Karya Bersama to some of the worst hit areas, such as Calang. Scuzz was forwarded a recent interview Robert did for www.ripcurl.com that truly captures the frenetic nature of things after the quake. In particular, Robert quotes a story from his good friend Dick Lewis that we felt we needed to post below, because it’s just so accurate and amazing. But first, please pay a visit to Rip Curl’s Tsunami Update portion of their site at http://www.ripcurl.com/content/anmviewer.asp?a=2287 so that you can find out more about Robert’s amazing efforts.

Here is Dick Lewis’s story:

“The psychological stress is tremendous among survivors, especially among young married men who lost their families but saved themselves because they were able to outrun the wave. Many survivors I talked to said if they were to die tomorrow, they would be happy. Children have nightmares – a 9 year old girl who was rescued by her mother’s desperate lunge of one arm into the murky water while her other arm clung to a building’s roof recounted her nightmare of drowning and being unable to breathe. Her friends speak of dreams populated by shattered bodies and severed limbs.

On the other hand, they are remarkably resilient, rebuilding their lives as they can – and it seemed to me that a majority are starting to do so on their own without waiting for assistance from the UN or NGOs. Even so, I was particularly touched by a young widower who'd lost his wife and year old child -- he said our presence (speaking of the international relief community there) was like medicine to their souls, providing a spark of hope for their shattered lives.

As for tsunami, one fisherman told me of being a kilometer out to sea and facing a sixty- foot high wall of water. His boat struggled up the wall, going nearly vertical, and barely made it over the top. There was no back side: for fifty feet the water was level as a plateau. The wind generated by the wave’s face size and velocity threw mist high into the air. It was this block of water that did most of the damage—six more smaller waves followed.

On shore, the sea retreated for hundreds of meters; one fishermen estimated the vertical sea level drop at 15 meters. A small head high wave surged to shore before this bigger wave struck. Survivors on shore described this wave as a rearing cobra swiftly moving forward. Prior to this, rice fields erupted with geysers of steaming water, and in fact some victims were scalded to death even before the tsunami struck.”

One of the other key players in this relief effort has been Sumatran Surfariis’ own Ovi Marunduri. Ovi has been a crewmember and guide for Sumatran Surfariis, but he was born and raised in Bawa Island in the Hinako’s, just off the south west coast of Nias. Ovi lost his brother and pregnant sister-in-law in the tsunami, but that did not stop him from being one of the most influential characters we’ve come across in the survival and relief efforts in the Indian Ocean. We conducted an interview with Ovi, and it’s a MUST READ. Unfortunately, it’s a bit too long for this particular update, so we’ve created a separate page for it here. PLEASE take the time to read it when you get a chance.

As far as our upcoming efforts, we’ve arranged a container full of medical furniture and beds, plus a few hundred kilos of tools to be sent from Australia to Padang. Thanks again to the folks at www.tools4tsunami.org for their help with this. We will be looking to give this hospital furniture to the new hospital in Tuapejat or the proposed one in Sirombu, Nias. We are also looking to adopt the island of Bawa. We have found some available land there that is quite central to the 4 villages, and will be building pig-proof fencing and some fruit and vegetable gardens. We’ve found that blood pressure was very high and that most of the islands illnesses are related to diet, which could be greatly improved with more fresh fruits and veggies. The locals have tried to build gardens before, but the pigs just destroy the crops and run through the small fences they’ve put up in the past to attempt to protect them. We are aiming at building a permanent, impenetrable fencing system that will be there for many years to come. We feel this will bring added esteem, wages, and a complete lifestyle change for the better for the locals of Bawa. Plus, it can create a new income stream if they can produce enough to sell back to the charter boats. Scuzz recently talked to several Indonesian horticulturalists that have worked on Siberut for the last 6 years, and he has learned how to begin. Lastly, we will also be making a boat for the island, plus organizing an outboard motor to be delivered and making a mooring or two.

If this project is successful, we will start moving to nearby islands and start working there in a similar fashion, with the vegetable gardens being the first priority. In addition, when we charter to the affected areas we will be bringing supplies up each trip to help out, plus we’ll be visiting the villages to provide ongoing support and education. We have some Indonesian informational sheets with pictures that we will be giving to villages to explain rebuilding, water sanitization and cleanliness among other things. We have our first big visit planned in April during a back-to-back, month-long charter trip. We plan to go up to and around Simeulue, distributing tools and supplies to outlying villages.

So, as you can see, although we have to eventually surrender our aid role into our primary business as a surf charter, the relief effort is ongoing, and there is still LOTS planned in the immediate future. And it’s clear that people have not forgotten or lost interest in the cause. We still receive MANY emails expressing positive feedback and encouragement daily, and that keeps us fired up. In addition, the fundraisers and benefits continue to take place to help raise money for those in need. The Santa Cruz surf community is throwing the next big one on February 3rd – see the January 9th update for more information on that if you’re in the area.

Thank you so much for all your support. We’ll keep you posted. Terima kasih!!