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

JULY 28th UPDATE

First, I need to apologize about the delay in getting this update out. It’s not because we haven’t being doing anything; it’s because we’ve been doing too much. We’ve been especially busy running concurrent surf trips and relief missions in what is now the peak season, but we realize you all like to be informed of our latest efforts. So, without further adieu, on to the update!

Scuzz has spent a lot of time around Nias lately and he’s actually been quite surprised at how the clean up and rebuilding process has gone. Teluk Dalam has been cleaned up quite well and many new structures are being lived in already. However, many villagers are living in structures that are barely still standing, structures that in any western country would have been condemned and taken down. Scuzz was told that a villager actually died recently when his very lopsided house collapsed on him during one of the many aftershocks the island of Nias is still feeling. Quakes in the 5.0 – 7.0 range still happen almost weekly, and there are several smaller ones that occur practically on a daily basis. To put that in perspective, imagine if you live in California or Sydney or a similar highly populated western area: people would be FREAKING if a 7.0 touched down near their hometowns. But this has simply become commonplace in many of the islands in Northern Sumatra. Most people still sleep in tents or outside in makeshift shelters, and understandably so.

The rumor mill still continues to spin new tales on a regular basis, which does nothing to quell the hearts of the locals. It seems each month there is one day that is forecast to have a big quake and this really freaks out the villagers. The islands of the Hinakos, just off the west coast of Nias, are greatly affected by this. The people out there are very scared of their islands sinking or being washed away by a tsunami. Evacuations to Nias, or other areas where they might feel more secure, are not uncommon.

Bawa is one of the small islands that make up the Hinakos. As a result of many people running off the island, the fruit and veggie garden we have been working on with the help of Woodleigh School in Baxter has been slowed down a bit. But overall, it is going great and we’ve made tremendous progress. We have moms, dads and kids all working there. Whoever wants to work gets a day’s wage at the end of the day is welcome. The hectare is now fairly well cleared save for a few bigger tree trunks and roots, and the fence looks solid. Scuzz and the boys from Northern California dropped off a load of barbed wire recently, which should be enough to allow the workers to fully “pig proof” the garden and start the planting very soon.

We have all the seeds there ready to be planted and the locals have made up some little pots for the seedlings. The locals have also dug a new well with fresh water, and they have created a shack for shade and lunch with a few seats crafted from the trees that were taken down. There is a nice big path to the garden and the locals are very proud. The island of Bawa has suffered greatly from lack of fresh water. When the island lifted, its wells were emptied dry. The locals were too scared to climb down and dig deeper due to the constant quakes and hence they lived off very little water, and what water they did have was polluted. As a result, diarrhea and sickness were becoming rampant on the small island. The new well at the garden is a lifesaver and has been used by two of the villages. German, who owns the surf camp in front of the righthander at Bawa, has just gotten his well dug deeper, too. And while the water is still clayish and cloudy, it is a start, and it has allowed him to take guests in to his camp again.

Bawa Sawa is the name of the village at the old harbor where the ferry would come in with the island’s supplies, and where guests would disembark to stay on land. It was greatly changed due to the uplift, stranding a couple of boats and a lot of mangroves. But there still was a little opening that allows small supply boats to get in. It is shallow and narrow, but with good navigation it still serves its purpose. Scuzz reckons that due to the large swells we have been having the whole opening is now full of broken coral and thick sand. It is about 8 feet high, so it is now really hard to get supplies in, especially with a good south swell running.

The changes to the area at the north end of Nias are just amazing. It has lifted so much that there are just kilometers and kilometers of newly exposed reef, cutting off a lot of the openings for fishing boats. The changes to the islands north of Nias are quite amazing, too, and also somewhat confusing. Some of the islands have lifted, while islands right next door are sinking. Many people theorize that the islands were going to universally lift, or sink, or “tilt” (meaning one end of the island will rise up while the opposite end will sink under). This is simply not the case, and the lifting of the underwater shelves has shown to not be the only factor. For example, while some islands may have actually been lifted by the earth’s changes, some towns and villages in the lifted portion of the islands that are located in marshy parts of the islands have actually slid and dipped into the ocean due to the erosion from the tsunami. This is just one factor that geologists are considering. The town and island of Balai is in a bad way as it has dropped a lot and left the people with a lot of growth problems.

A lot of our scientific data continues to come from Dr. Kerry Sieh, an amazing geologist from CalTech that’s really helped us, and a lot of people, make sense to all of this. He’s been able to actually quantify a lot of the changes, and illustrate just how drastic the movements have been. Kerry says that most of the motion of the mega thrust from the big March 28th earthquake was directly beneath Nias and Simeulue. Nias rose 2.9 meters at Lahewa, 2.5 meters at Sirombu, and .7 meters at Sorake. Simeulue rose 1.7 meters at the airport and Busong Bay. What’s really interesting is that one month after the March earthquake, Kerry’s GPS/seismic instruments showed continuous motion at Lahewa and Simeulue. This motion was slow and did not produce major quakes, but basically it showed that small adjustments are still very much happening on the mega thrust around Nias, and the earth is still trying to settle back into a stable place. Apparently, it’s not ready yet. ;)

For those of you who’ve been traveling to the Mentawais or Northern Sumatra for many years, you may have noticed tha every year the islands seemed to be slowly sinking ever so slightly. This had been the case for many, many years, until the quakes of December 26 and March 28 caused a major shift in the opposite direction. Then, there was a significant aftershock centered just southeast of Siberut on April 10 that was caused by the pop of a little fault between Padang and the islands. Because it broke the seafloor just east of the islands, it caused a little tsunami on the islands and in Padang. The Padang tsunami was so small it was barely noticed, around 20cm.

Kerry is now staying a lot of nights at our hotel in Padang, the Hotel Batang Arau. He has the room that looks directly onto the river. Both Time Magazine and Discovery Channel have been in to interview him. He very much tries to stick to the facts of what his instruments register. He cannot predict any specific time an earthquake will happen, or how big any resulting tsunami will be. Currently he is finding reports from the 1833 quake and tsunami. However, they are generally vague and may be exaggerated, as well as written in Dutch and must be translated. Every observer, and there are not many documented, saw it differently, so it is difficult to sort out what is fact and what is perception.

Kerry has given us a lot of FACT and expert opinion that you can review in more detail for yourself. It’s sort of a long read, so I’ve created a separate page for it here that explains how much each area has risen and fallen. From that information, you may be able to derive how the quakes and tsunami may have affected your favorite breaks. Also, Kerry provides some very interesting insight as to why he thinks the next big quake would likely be near Padang and the Mentawais, and why he refers to the new resort at Macaronis as “a tsunami death trap”. It’s a very informative read, so check it out. From Scuzz’s own personal observations, as a general rule the further he’s headed south, the less likely there is to be damage or noticeable change. We usually start our North Sumatra Surf Trips in the Telo Island Chain, and Scuzz has not really seen that area to be really affected or changed, not to an eye’s notice, anyway. He reckons there may be a slight loss of sand off these islands due to a tiny bit of sinking and big swells, but that’s about it.

One good sign we’re seeing on our trips is that the fish seem to have come back. For a while after the March 28 quake, nearly every boat was having trouble landing fish. That all changed around mid-June when just about every boat did very well, and we have continued to do so. Scuzz told me actually landed a big Wahoo while writing me an update as he was traveling through the Telo chain. Sumo and the gang just got back from their trip on the July 23, and they said they landed 17 sizeable fish, and Scuzz’s response to Sumo’s email was, “That’s all??!! I thought we caught way more than that.”

As to waves, well, you’re going to have to come with us and see. We refuse to give too much away there. Not to toot our own horns too much, but we undoubtedly have discovered our fair share of absolute gem waves in the past, especially up North. We have been less that vigilant about guarding these secrets, and as a result some of these waves have become part of the normal stopping grounds for other charters who've found this information secondhand. In terms of swell, let’s just say, to put it bluntly, that this year has been cranking. There has been amazing swell lately and we have been able to see what happens to the new (and old) reefs on some different conditions. Some are not so good, some are way better, and there are definitely some new gems. I’ll be putting some visual eye candy on homepage, and there will more to come on our Photos section. But we now have new insight to the old breaks, and secrets about some new waves, and we intend to guard that information. The only way you’ll find out for sure is if you come with us – the cat’s got my tongue. ;)

On a different note, the amazing generosity toward the relief efforts has not dwindled. I feel horrible that I am just now getting around to thank the Santa Cruz/Pacific Northwest guys that came up with such an amazing effort for their June trip. The crew consisting of Troy Depudyt, Chris Saari, Scott Prince, Bryan Thom, Marco Cruz, and Anthony Kresge did an absolute AMAZING job by raising over $8,000us for relief items, which they then distributed to the villages in the islands they visited on their trip up North from June 11 – 22. The guys raised so much money that we didn’t have enough space on board the Southern Cross to fit all the goods and supplies the money paid for. But the guys, along with guests Ridley “Doc” Doolittle and Simon Rajaratnam who joined the crew late, traveled with a boat full of 5 tons of food and basic supplies (such as fuel, sugar, coffee, fishing and diving gear, nets, noodles, school books, pens, etc.) and energetically hand-delivered them to the villagers. The guys were really impressive, often going into very remote villages and stoking the kids out. In 7 of the roughly 15 villages they visited, the boys delivered soccer balls, volleyball nets and volleyballs – items they can use to take their minds off the devastation and simply have fun once in a while. Scuzz has since seen them being put to a lot of use. Nearly every arvo there are lots of kids out yelling and screaming and playing exciting games of volleyball and soccer - epic stuff!!

The SC/Pacific Northwest guys pretty much did this all on their own, through their own personal contacts. Troy, who is a surf/snow rep in Northern California, used his industry contacts to help donate goods that were used in a raffle conducted at a BBQ the boys held for the specific purpose of raising money for their trip. Troy and his gang managed to get items donated for the BBQ from Dub Congress, SPUN, Liquid Imagery, Randy Brown Photography, Alistair Craft and Adam Repogle @ Billabong Surf Shop, Cobian USA, Spy, Liquid Militia, Pack Your Trash, Chris English, Alexis Party Rentals, Ezekiel, the Burrell School, Macdonald Design, Donovan Signs and Freeline Surf Shop – all of whom we’d like to thank. Salomon and Cobian Sandals also donated healthy chunks of change directly to the cause, as well, and all tolled they raised a several thousand dollars. Marco organized a raffle through his workplace, Superior foods, that raised over $2,300 for the cause, and he raised an additional $400 from a vintage surfboard auction. Brian Thom donated $1,000 BY HIMSELF, and that’s in addition to the cost he paid for the trip itself. Pretty much all of the guys who went on the trip donated sizable amounts, ON TOP of what they paid to go on the trip. It was just an amazing, amazing unselfish and tireless effort from the guys. I was on the phone almost daily with Troy for a couple months, and we were just stunned at how the forecast for the funds raised just kept going up and up and up. The giving spirit is infectious, and it was clearly on display from these guys.

The boys also spent a fair bit of cash (rupiah) around the islands while on their trip, which helps a lot. The impact of actually going to Sumatra on these surf trips and contributing to the local economy cannot be undersold. For example, we employ a full-time staff of over 30 local Indonesians, and several of the other charter companies are structured in a similar way. In addition, when guests go on land and spend a few bucks, that adds up and contributes greatl to their economy. The Santa Cruz/Pacific Northwest hired a car and did a trip up to the hill village in Nias (with some of the guys riding on the roof!). There, they donated to the kings house, had a couple of guys jump the stone, bought lots of carvings, drinks, donate to the Clean Sorake Beach Fund. All of this adds up, and with the huge dip in surf travel to this area after the quakes and tsunamis, the impact of people actually just going on trips is magnified even more.

Certain organizations have been really good at employing locals in their own relief efforts. Red Cross Spain and Denmark have been especially good at this, employing kids to clean up the asbestos, distribute tents, set up health clinics, rebuild roads, houses, electrical and telephone lines. You see their cars every day and a couple of the kids are on big wages (by Indonesian standards). However, we feel the locals are a valuable resource that is being drastically underused. It doesn’t take a lot of money to employ these locals, and we know there are a lot of people who have donated money in the hope that it would be spent rebuilding the towns of the surfing places they have stayed and enjoyed. To the people and organizations that are reading this (and you know who we mean), please: it doesn’t take much to employ a few locals at each beach to begin clean up. In fact, it costs a hell of a lot less to employ these locals than it would any westerner, even those working for “non-profits”. Let their families know you are employing them and the money will be used by the families in a good trickle down way, and will help build the overall self-esteem of the villages.

One great example was when Dedi, our friend from Lagundri pictured in the wheelchair, came to Padang looking for any sort of work. Through Matt George and Dave Lupo of the SRO (http://surfzonerelief.org), Dedi was hired to pull out old rusty nails from the bits of wood they were pulling out of the Batang Arau River. Dedi was so proud. It wasn’t about the small change (by the rest of the world’s standards) that he got paid; it was that he contributed to the relief effort and felt like a valuable asset. It was about self-esteem, and the feeling that he could make a difference in even the smallest way. Great stuff SRO, and we hope more people/companies/NGOs follow suit in a similar fashion.

On the topic of the SRO, they have become fairy godfathers to Padang after all their island work. Lately they have cleaned the Batang Arau River of one of its old skeleton ships, which has basically been rotting and corrupting its waters for far too long. They have devised an evacuation plan for Padang and done test drills at many areas. They have employed and involved many locals and have been befriended by the president of Indonesia and Padang's mayor and governor. This is a great group working off their own money and any money raised through fundraising, and we can personally vouch that any help given to them will be used to its best. There is actually a good article in the new BIG 45th Anniversary issue of Surfer Magazine (starting on page 306) that tells a pretty good story, where many have been sugar coated or exaggerated. The article does talk about Scuzz, Christina, AK, and Scuzz’s lil’ sister Alyssa, but read deep into it.

Following the SC/Pacific Northwest trip, the June 24th trip on Southern Cross consisted of a group long-time Californian return customers who also brought over money for supplies and aid, plus cash to spend on local goods. It’s really very inspiring and energizing to see. The locals, while often still very hard and hassly, are actually acknowledging us as being the only people in the surf community to really help and keep helping each time. Scuzz is finding they are giving us lots of waves and there’s quite a bit of nice stuff happening on land. In fact, for one of the sessions at Lagundri Bay (the famous right at Nias), the locals cleared the entire lineup for the SC/Pacific Northwest guys and let the boys have at it by themselves for a full session. We have never seen anything like this before. They aren’t usually like this; it’s a good sign and big step.

As far as our plans in the immediate future, we have leased the land at Bawa for three years and will keep going with the fruit and veggie garden. The locals can then sell the product back to us, and any other boats traveling in the area. All profits and food will be used for the island to improve the diets and general well being of the villagers. A lot of this is made possible by the generous donations from the teachers at the Woodleigh School in Victoria, Scuzz’s “early alma mater”. As mentioned in previous updates, they have set up a system where small amounts are withdrawn from their regular paychecks and sent over to us on a monthly basis. Also, individual contributions go a long way. If I were to include everyone who has donated since the last update, the list would probably be longer than this entire update itself, so I’ll have to thank a small portion. But if you’re name is not on this list, please do not think we don’t value your generous efforts: Tom and Scott Corkhill, Jean Austin, Pat Bennett, Joyce Cavanaugh, Pat Griffith, Karen Hardy, Sandy Klein, Betsy Ritchie, Margaret Robertson, Betty Simpson, Judy Yeager, Rosemary Lenaghan, Pablo Schulte, Anthony Moreland and Ana Corrales, John and Margaret Saari, Matthew Vaughn, Marilyn Vaughn, Amanda and Jesse Armitage, and Erin Mullery. In addition, the main camp at Sorake Beach is back to a condition where they can take on guests again. Two of our friends, Mjon from Holland and also Kevin Lovett, are staying in the camp, and they report roughly 15 guests staying at the present time, so it’s looking up. So your help is definitely making a difference!

And of course, we are still taking donations. For anyone out there still wanting to give, we are happy to take your donations and distribute the goods we purchase with them throughout the islands. You can find out more information on how to donate on our "Ways to Help" page. We do this EVERY trip, and we run trips pretty much constantly throughout the year. We take pride in putting your hard earned money to good use, and if you have any doubts on how your donations are being used, we are more than happy to provide you exact details on how your money is being spent and what goods are being purchased. Or better yet, please come over and visit, spend some time with the people, and ask. As we’ve said several times, just coming to Indo and being part of the environment makes a significant difference.

That’s about all for now. Again, sorry it took so long to get out this update. It’s the peak season, and it’s very difficult to manage a surf charter business and run constant relief missions at the same time. But we’ll try and be more prompt in the future. Thanks, and hope this finds you all well.

Slayer – the Web Dork