Machine-like Mentawaii's

If you’re looking for a schweet place to stay in Indo, then this is most definitely it. Not often a possie is better than what it looks like on the website, but this is one of those places for sure. It’s been built from the ground up by a bunch of Aussies who’ve been in this area for yonks. They initially ran a few charter boats and were looking for a lekker place to build a resort where there were few crowds and plenty wave options.

It’s an amazing lil set-up in the middle of nowhere. Catch a flying box with winds (aka Cessna) outta Padang for an hour hop over to the islands. Then it’s an hour run in the speedboat down to the resort. Thankfully a proper speedboat – two big 4-stroke 250’s on her.

The resort is on its own island, and consists of 2 double story timber homes with a restaurant area and big pool in the middle. Each house has its own board room and games/TV room. Awesome rooms with comfy beds and fans/aircon mean a good night sleep after a day full of waves.

Day 1 we grabbed a quick lunch after arriving in the “plane” and headed out to a bit of a gnarly slab, made even gnarlier cos the swell was a messed up windswell and it was a bit onshore – not my fave conditions at the best of times. Had a stab at it, hung round on the shoulder mainly thanks to seeing a few ou’s getting properly smashed on the inside. Nice lil reality check as to how much of a wuss I was when a lil 5 year old Indonesian lighty paddled past me on his half a surfboard (front half – so no fins) and went and charged the inside bowl using it as a body board.

Always a bonus to come back from a surf and have a big plate of wantons and dimsum waiting for you – could get used to this!

Day 2 and an hours speedboat trip down to an amazing right reef/point set-up. It was worth the mission. It’s pretty deep inside a bay so the swell bends right in, hits this ledge and then funnels down the reef for about 200m. Really predictable – breaks in a similar spot each time – just further out the bigger the set. Think Humewood takeoff and wall but Millers length. Perfect.

Was a bit of a cross chop on it the first day, but still way better than anything I’ve surfed in the last 2 months.

Day 3 saw a huge storm blaze through in the morning, and things were looking dire. But waited it out and made the run back down to the same spot mid-morning. Turned out to be a great call. The wind glassed off and there were some well overhead sets coming through.

Cos it's such a mechanical set-up I was happy to hang around the inside and snag the medium size one's, and then still be able to sprint paddle wide outta the way of the sets. I'm particularly adverse to getting bombs on the head so always stoked when a spot allows me to see 'em from a mile off and get outta the way.

I reckon have had more waves in the past 5 days than in the last 3 months put together, so worth the 2 day trip to get here from SA. The 8 of us here at the resort are probably the only foreign surfers in this part of the island chain for sure. There are 3 other resorts up here, but this is the only one open during the "off season". Off season my ass, we've had super fun waves every single day since we've been here.

Headed up north to try some different spots and surfed the one above which has to rate as one of the more scenic surf spots about. The wave breaks off a pinnacle and then runs right up along the edge of an island - kinda feels like you're surfing into the jungle. 

Internet connection is slower than a donkey with a ball & chain attached. This is the first time since I've been here that have even been able to get the site to load. So apologies for the sparse updates.

But wow, what a kiff place to be. Had waves every day, all day. Just 6 other peeps and us. Come home from a surf and Larry the surf hound is there to greet you, followed by a selection of awesome snacks - think wantons, dimsum, springrolls, fried squid etc etc. Oh, and they set up a big screen projector on the palm tree, so next to the pool you have this huge screen showing surf movies, it's just too good to be true. Dinners are crazy good - the food is 5 star all the way. Prawns, crab, steak, salmon.....you have to surf all day to be able to eat the spread at night. 

What's even better is we scored a half price deal on our holiday cos it's off season here. But off season Ments is like cooking PE, so suits us just fine!

Switch in swell and wind direction tomorrow so should be some new spots to try out.