The Mentawai Islands truely are paradise. Sitting about 60 nautical miles west of Indonesia’s largest island, Sumatra, the Mentawai Islands are home to some of the most consistent surf around. Because of their exposure to Roaring 40s swells the Ments are like a mega wickie keeper for any swell activity in the northern Indian Ocean. The water is wee warm (so boardies only + some sensible sun protection kiddies) and the Bintangs are icy cold - a gold spot to maintain with your mates and enjoy some serenity away from the 9-5.
Winds are pretty tough to predict at this time of year. Unfortunately we copped uncharacteristic southerly winds for a majority of our trip which limited where we could surf, but we still got some good waves. Telescopes was our first taste of Mentawai gold on the trip. It’s a long left hander that handles the southerly wind. The wave is long and hollow with a couple of good tube sections and it’s not too fast so you can cruise your way through the roomy tubes.
There are always pros floating around these parts in peak season - WCTers keeping sharp for the tour, hot groms on photo trips etc…Aussie superstar Phil Macca and Hawaiian Mikala Jones were out at Rifles wafting and flaring their way through the quick right handers.
Macaronis is a standard stop on any boat trip in these waters. It’s a fun, playful wave at 2-3ft but she starts showing her teeth above 4ft with a double up take off and long clean barrels standard on most waves. The wind was a bit wrong for it when we were anchored there but some good ones were still coming through. The funnest onshore wave in the world they reckon.
We surfed a host of other fun waves, with no one around too. The Mentawais tunes up your surfing like no other surf trip with 3-4 surfs per day the norm in a variety of waves. “Tubes for breakfast”, “get shacked up from the mozzies!” are the catch crys, yeww!
Just like up north WA, the fishing in these waters is unreal. We got onto some big, juicy mongrels with some awesome fresh sashimi yields.
It’s always good to get back to Oz even if it’s cold and rainy…we’re almost done with winter though and dunno about you but I’m pretty gee’d up for a golden spring!
Hope crew have been keeping well, more soon. Outies.
>>ww
