Hollow Trees, Indonesia.

Gambling for a shot at life-changing waves. August 2024

A typical paddle-out view for this part of the world—electric blue water, crispy offshores, and someone (myself in this case) about to get barreled.

Everything in Indonesia is a gamble. It’s a poker game that only ends when the customs agent of your home country hands you back your passport. Simply existing there involves having to choose between danger and decay—doubling down or leaving the table. There is no safe play, no easy routine, no stasis. Disease or disaster could strike at any moment, and you either accept the risks and live or die by them, careened along by the momentum that success may bring, or be sunk by the countless ills that can befall you in such a dynamic environment. You can’t escape this game, so you must play it to your wit’s limit. 

I arrived there naive to all of this. I was aware of the risks and the potential for rewards, but I didn’t anticipate the cunning required to hop each hurdle, and the way it would all be presented as a game. All around me were the signs of the game being played. My friends had already been in Indo for 3 months, slow-playing their chips so that they could make their stack last as long as possible. They had big wins in Sumbawa, Java, and Bali, with firing waves and good times with friends.  They had suffered mostly losses in Sumatra; enduring a grueling illness, mediocre surf, and convoluted travel logistics.  We were all waiting for the lucky hand out in Mentawai. Ivan, our host and proprietor of The Point Surf Camp, had been doubled down since he first came to this area 10 years prior. Since then, he went all-in every chance he got, buying land up the road from the area’s main wave for a modest sum, building the camp there and getting the young business established. He’s now able to reap the rewards in the form of set waves at Hollow Trees and the dream lifestyle there in paradise, but he isn’t cashing out his chips any time soon, he’s continuing to invest his returns into the land and business.  My first trial was the 6-day journey that it took to arrive in the Mentawai Islands. The gamble to jump on the faster, more direct private speedboat from Padang directly to our destination near Hollow Trees would prove a mistake, as the boat turned around in high seas and cost us two days of our stay at The Point. We were allowed to add the 2 days we lost to the end of our stay, which would have been perfect except that my flight back to LAX wasn’t changeable and I had arrangements back home that I needed to be present for. This set up the crux of my trip's gamble: spend the roughly 1000$ usd to stay 3 extra days and fly by the seat of my pants home so that I could arrive a mere 24 hours prior to the event requiring my presence? Or stick to my guns, accept the shortened trip, and make it home early enough to unpack and acclimatize, and maybe even sneak in a couple days of work.  I would roll over the idea nightly for the next week. 

 …

In the early 1990s, an Australian man named Lance arrived at the southern tip of Sipura Island with a bottle of water and a bag of rice, so the story goes. He was in search of a left breaking in a bay he’d seen on a map. The boat he’d hired to get there had to shelter from a storm on the leeward side of the island near the village of Katiet. What he found there was completely unexpected—the swell wrapped 180 degrees around the southern peninsula of the island, and the meat of it found its way to an ideally shaped reef in front of the village. It was a perfect barreling right on the opposite coast from where he was hoping to surf.  The wave became known as Lance’s Right, but over the years was also named after the tree that grew from the reef with a hole in its trunk: Hollow Trees. Nowadays, a ferry can make the 100-mile crossing to the island in about 3 and a half hours, and after 2 more winding and muddy hours you can be arriving at the door of one of the various accommodations that front the beach near Hollow trees, or HTs for short. This, of course, is what we did after our extended layover in the port of Padang. Once I finally got there, I realized what all the hype around the Mentawai Islands was about. The sand is so white, the water so crystal blue, the coco palms so green waiting at the water's edge, that none of it seems real. The sun never burns overly harsh, the air is warm and humid but rarely breaks 85F, the wind and rain swirl all around but never roughly enough to bring things below 75F. As hard as you try, you can’t find a disquieting feature to pierce the veil of the dreamlike trance you slip into once you arrive. Plus, the waves are perfect.

We had just the right run of swell to get acquainted with HTs—small at first but growing to proper size and quality after a few days. It gave us time to dial in the takeoff and figure out how to negotiate the dry-reef end section known as the Surgeon’s Table for its sharpness. By the time the swell grew, I knew the subtleties in the bend of a wave that would produce a quality tube at the reef’s end bowl, known as the Cage. The drop there is steeper and more critical than the roll in-from out the back, but if you make the wave, you’re spit into the channel for a dry hair paddle back out.  I trusted my ability to make the drop, so I liked the tradeoff of danger and reward. I got enough good waves there in the first swell to build my confidence on what I was looking for and what I could make.  The boys had been throwing around the term “life changer” during the first big swell as a way to refer to a wave that’s so good that it changes your life. They were out there, we knew. Waves that big and perfect are so powerful that they run lightning bolts through your synapses, and can alter your whole outlook on the world. My brain had been slowly coming to terms with the fact that all this gallivanting around the globe was foolish to an extent and had its consequences, plus my bones and bank account were weary. It’s safe to say I was ready for my life to be changed when the wave came to me. 

The next swell was more unexpected and energetic. People in town told us that it would be good, and the forecast showed good swell but bad wind. We didn’t know what to expect, and after some back and forth checking it in the morning, the wind unexpectedly started to cooperate and the waves turned on. The swell was pulsing and powerful, and everybody got some solid beat-downs. Colton broke 2 boards. Sammy got his leash caught on the reef and had to yank it off underwater so he could come up before the next wave. I helped him get to his board. Later, I was happy to make it back to the beach with skin intact after an awkward ping-pong through the low-tide reef. All that sketchy action gave me an anxious feeling.  Back at The Point during lunch, I was still wrestling with the idea of spending so much money to extend my trip and the discomfort this would set me up for when I got home. I knew I needed to get the life-changing wave, and the forecast told me I’d get another day like this one if I extended. So I put down the 700$ for a new flight home, and made note of the policy that allowed me to get a full refund if I canceled within 24 hours. If I get the wave in this next session, I can always just cancel it and skip all the extra costs and bullshit, I thought. I had hedged my bets, and it was strangely liberating. I could go into the next session and give it my all and not worry if I got the wave then or later. It gave me a boost of energy and confidence going into the next session.

We came back after lunch to find the tide rising and the wind puffing offshore, making things look properly epic. Standup tube after tube rifled down the reef and spit at the end. I still had a frog in my throat, but I knew I had to go get a piece of it. I caught a few good ones, dialing in the position I wanted to take off from. I was playing to my advantage the fact that every now and then, a set would swing too big and wide for the rest of the crowd sitting up the reef to catch. Most people waiting at the end bowl didn’t want the big sets, and so if I sat far enough out and waited patiently, a bomb set would be all mine. This is essentially what happened on that wave. It rose up and walled the whole way across the reef. No one from the outside could reach it, and everyone on the inside was too far in. I was pretty far in as well, but I believed I could make it if I paddled downward hard enough. It was already almost past vertical under me, but I pushed over the ledge. The sharp rail of my 6’0 Black Beauty held at the bottom and I looked up at a triangle of lip angling straight for my head. My only choice was to dig the rail in, duck under the lip and hope for the best. Everything was a blur after that. It felt like I was standing still as everything around me was rotating, pulsating, narrowing. Next, there was a cloud of blurring haze and I was shot into the channel. I put my hands on my head, on the yellow helmet that had become my persona, my lineup callsign. I tried to imprint it in my memory, but I couldn’t boil it down to one image. Instead, it just was the feeling of the twisting chamber of vibrating water moving around me as I stayed frozen in the middle of it all that I was able to save. The headrush, the shaky hands, and the butterflies in my stomach told me that that was the best wave I’d ever caught, and I told that to the guy who had that paddled up and congratulated me on my ride.

My next wave was a slow motion car wreck. I always have a hard time backing up success with more success, and my brain was already flushed with adrenaline, so I was a bit overconfident in taking a late drop that I had no business in attempting. I wore it safely, and rode a whitewater in over the reef so I could get around the Table. I was hauling ass over the shallow end of the reef on my belly when a backwash wave launched me into the air. When I landed back on the surface, I felt the fins meet coral, as they had many times already on this trip. Back on the beach, I saw that my finbox had been punched in, effectively ending the session. My board was taxed and I was spent, but I’d gotten the wave. My friends had seen the whole thing from the beach and showered me in beer when I came in. We cracked a few more as we watched the last few sets of the evening rifle off, seratonin pumping, numb to the mosquitos and slices in our feet. 

Beach dogs in Bintang mode. Fried from the day’s session, but keeping a keen eye on the action.

After a late night of poker and shooting the shit, I woke with my brain feeling like an empty crater where all of yesterday's dopamine used to be. I still had time to cancel the flight I had bought the day before, to change my plan back to the original one that would avoid excess spending and allow me time to rest at home before needing to be anywhere. I rolled over it in bed for a little longer before pressing the ‘cancel’ button. Then, I went surfing. The waves had dropped considerably and were shallow and sectiony on the low tide reef, but occasionally a solid set would barrel on the outside. I worked my way to the top of the takeoff zone and a set swung in. I looked long and hard at the second wave, and pictured my tired self not making it down the rampy drop and through the walling sections I saw ahead of me, so I didn’t paddle. I heard someone yell “goooo” as I refused to do so. I watched it barrel down the reef from behind at a probably manageable pace, but I couldn’t tell if I would’ve made it or not. I didn’t catch any of the other waves in the set. A few minutes later, an Australian paddled up to me and asked why I didn’t go. “I don’t know, I guess I didn’t think I could make it. I probably should’ve gone anyways.” I said. “Shoulda woulda coulda mate” was his response. It stung, but was a quick reminder that when you cash out your chips, you can’t keep winning. 

The last 2 days of my trip were all denouement—falling action after the climax. We surfed small HTs and even The Point, the wave in front of our camp and its namesake, but nothing notable happened other than our kiwi friends catching a sailfish and an evening soiree at the HTs resort, the hub for visiting surfers in the area. The boys roasted me endlessly for getting such a good wave and deciding not to extend the trip further afterwards. I was enlightened, I was complete, my life was changed, they said. The ironic thing was, they were a little bit right.  I was satisfied, and sure of myself that the decision to head home on schedule was the right one, even if the surf report showed another epic day coming a few days after I was now set to leave.  This confidence lasted exactly until I arrived in the same hotel in Padang where I’d started the trip.  That's when the pangs of regret for leaving such a wonderful place set in.  After 2 more days of shuffling through airports with that regret gnawing at the back of my brain, I needed to know how the swell I was missing turned out to be.  The report from the crew was that the waves turned on, but weren’t as big, consistent, and uncrowded as the previous swell.  No life-changers were had.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to hear that, but also bummed that my friends didn’t get their life-changers and join me in enlightenment.  They were doomed to keep searching for that wave, from one paradise to the next.  Then again, if the waves had been epic and they all got waves better than mine, I would have been stricken with regret and jealousy.  Every coin has two sides.

So, did I play my cards right?  It's an impossible, reductive waste of time to try to figure out, but I still went over it in my head.  Like a river card that doesn’t hit, it was a relief that the last swell underperformed after I folded my cards. Still, cashing out my chips and leaving the table made me feel like I was making the safe play, which rarely pays off big in the end.  Truly the ethos of Indonesia is to commit to risk after risk and always roll any winnings into the next hand.  Life has a certain sweetness out there, and the object of pretty much everyone’s game is to extend their time in it as long as possible.  Cashing out and leaving felt like going against this lesson, but I knew that more important things lay ahead for me at home.  New confidence and perspective let me see that I should be looking forward, not back.  I realized that I had been putting the pursuit of that wave above other important things in life, and that the longer I did this, the greater the opportunity costs would be.  The more I invested in searching for that wave, the more I’d miss out on other aspects of life--relationships, finances, careers.  I realized that in this next phase, the best way to play my cards to get the most out of life and more of those waves would be to lean into developing those things that I’d been neglecting.  Progress in the boring stuff like career and finances could lead to better opportunities for the things I love.  I’m grateful for that wave for helping me embrace these changes and not try to freeze myself in the moment, because then I’d just be stuck there.  What that wave really taught me was that life is always changing.  In a way, every wave we ride changes our lives for that short moment.  Usually, we're so addicted to getting back out there and getting another one that we forget all about our last ride and do just that.  It takes a peak experience to remind you of what you’re chasing and what it feels like to actually find it.  Rarely do we stop to consider what we’d do after we satisfied ourselves, so to understand that was the best lesson I could’ve gotten from this trip. After all, that ride was only 5 seconds long.

The hardest view to walk away from.