The island is alive!

Its hard to believe we've already been here for two weeks.  Time has flown by and at the same time stood still.  Afternoons in the hammock reading, evenings watching the sunset, or hours spent stretching and just watching the waves and waiting for the wind to make its lazy turn from morning east to the desired mid day south, or angin selatan.  Sometimes it is hard to believe we are waiting for the waves to improve, it seems we measure in degrees of perfection here.  Its like going to a victorias secret photo shoot, and dismissing the early models because you are waiting to see the "really hot ones".   But after 9 saltwatery days of that desirable cycle of barrels, sunburns, and sore shoulders, we are now on the 6th day of poor winds.  Not to say we havent been surfing, we just havent had the same flawlessness we arrived to. 

Some views of the wave. 

But thats OK, it has given us time to become acquainted with the island a bit better and realize how much life is here.  Love it or not you are part of the tropical jungle here.  Whether it is a giant 10" centipede coming up between the floorboards of our hut, a dozen hermit crabs battling for supremacy under the hammock, geckos on all the walls, or a pregnant cat chasing a 3' snake out of the thatched roof and having it land next to the dinner table, it seems life is everywhere here.  Ants, flies, mosquitos, dogs, eagles, even a seashell you bend to pickup is likely to sprout legs and run away (seriously).   Genji has reclaimed his "master" title, getting a nice bluefin trevally with his speargun and also a dogtooth tuna.  Whilst spearfishing, we've encountered turtles, large rays, and dozens of different colorful fish on the reef.  The reef itself has tidal pools which hold crabs, swimming lizards, and some giant clams the size of a catchers mitt that clamp close when you poke them with your spear.  Gnarly! 

A Jungle in the middle of the ocean.

Earl our host, bringing supplies up the beach.  This on the back of the island where we land the skiff due to lack of swell there, then we walk through the jungle to where the camp/wave are.  It is about 15 minutes of beautful scenery and sweat.

In honor of my 6'8 HIC that died in Chile (emblazened with a drawing of Punta de Los Lobos), I marked up my replacement board with a likeness our wave here.  It performed solidly on its virgin surf, in 12'-15' faces.  I got worked on a few waves and lost one booty to the swell, but also nabbed a few of the bigger waves I've ever surfed. 

Earl on his backhand.  Marathon man, he sometimes rocks a camelback and surfs 6 hours straight. 

In the native language, this island's name means "Dog Island".  She's heaps preggers too. 

This island was raised by about 10' by a large earthquake, a few months after the boxing day quake in 2005 that killed close to 150,000 people.  They say pretty much everyone in Indonesia lost a family member in that event.  So far we have met only people that seem genuinely happy to be alive every day.  Big smiles, even right now when many are fasting 14 hours a day for Ramadan.  These ladies are right where the old surf spot was but now it is just dry reef.  Of course, the coral has died but new life is creeping upon the reef.

We are timed well, with a big swell and improved winds forecast for the next 5 days.  There is even talk of a rare bird right hander bombie (offshore reef not attached to an island) turning on, which we are hoping to see.    Then we will head to another island further north of here and search for a righthander that Oliver and Jeremy, our Aussie friends we met in Chile gave us map coordinates for.  Also there is a contingent of 8 or 9 brazillains inbound for this very island, if the crowds get bad we might leave a few days early to seek the legendary wave on southern Nias.  It all depends on time and swell, the search continues!!!

Oh yea, one more thing, we received several requests to go ahead and turn this blog into full on surf porn so hopefully we can get some better surf action shots and post them for you all soon.  -Kevin