Perfect or Perfectly Deadly? Sumatra 2014

 

A jungle trek leads to a hidden cove

    

   

With a bit of gumption, a daypack of provisions, and a liberal application of bug repellent, the intrepid surf explorer eager to impersonate Indiana Jones can enter the jungle, struggle through suffocating humidity, and emerge from muddy paths to find a place where the constraints of ordinary experience not only diminish but give way to paradise visions.  One may find, for example, a deserted cove where untrodden sand edges an emerald sea and balmy breezes carry an echo of the dreamtime.  There, an apparently perfect left spins beyond the lagoon, a fantasy wave, its shoreward surge like the frolic of a winged horse in a meadow of the gods.

Sumatran secret. . .Photo:  S. Jacques Stratton

  

 

When I first saw the wave it seemed surreal, as though the jungle trek had somehow warped the fabric of space-time and confronted me with a scene from the primordial Earth.  Under the sheen of sweat and bug repellent coating my face, I felt my expression contort into that wide-eyed, open-mouthed variety that signals bewilderment.  During the run of swell over the prior week, charter yacht crowds battled for waves half as good.  To find a dream wave going off under the radar screen on a day deemed flat  seemed beyond strange.  Additionally, the irony had a personal dimension that turned more cruel with each successive wave that spun down the reef.  I didn't have a board. . .

Why would I?  Enlisted on a jungle trek to photograph monkeys, I planned my equipment needs 

 

 

Mystery monkey. . .Photo: S. Jacques Stratton

 

accordingly--daypack, bottled water, camera accessories, and hiking boots.  The idea that I should add my surf gear to the equipment list, on the rare chance that I might stumble across a dream wave in The Land that Time Forgot, simply never occurred to me.

 

Well, that was about to change. . .one nagging detail--a consolation of sorts--kept me from kicking the sand in frustration and calling myself an idiot.  Lacking reference point, I had no sense of the wave height.  The camera's zoom lens offered little clarification.  I couldn't tell if the ruler-edged peelers that came into focus represented knee-high reef scrapers or double-overhead bombs with board snapping potential..  I couldn't tell, but I knew I had to find out. . .

 

With the call of the sea in my anxious expression, I absolved myself of further wildlife photography duties and made a beeline for camp, contemplating the sense of foolishness that would no doubt afflict me if, after slogging back and forth through the jungle, I returned board-in-hand only to find the vision of fantasy surf shattered by different tide and wind conditions.  I'd heard tales of Indonesian reefs that, once in a Blue Moon, turned on as tidal forces pushed water over special coral contours, and I wondered if this spot might fit that profile.  My mind a-whirl with such speculations, I lost an appreciation for potential trail hazards, including a brown snake whose presence I discerned just as my sandaled feet stepped inches from its flicking tongue.

Back at camp, the profusion of empty beer bottles and the lethargic posture of my fellow guests indicated I'd have difficulty organizing a formal surf expedition.  Specifically, I hoped to drum up a skiff and a surf guide, and thus avoid another jungle trek.  Unfortunately, the camp crew had all embarked on errands, and the most interest I could generate in my fellow campers was a bemused "good on ya, mate!" from an Australian, who clearly regarded my report of perfect surf on the other side of the island as a madman's raving. 

After another jungle jaunt that depleted a good portion of the calories I needed for surfing, I returned to the hidden cove. With a cackle of glee I mocked the unbelievers back at camp.  "I'm out there!" I intoned, as the surf gods unfurled another set for my private appreciation.  

 

"I'm out there!. . .In truth, I had no sense of the wave height.

The paddle-out went easily enough--at first.  Between the beach and the fringing reef, a waist-deep lagoon, its clear waters a sanctuary for colorful fish, offered an inviting paddling path.  Yet here I encountered a surprise indication that I'd stumbled upon the primordial edge, where expected forms acquire unexpected dimension.  The lagoon proved wider than I initially judged--much wider.  When I finally reached the shallows of the fringing reef and stood on the coral, I looked back to see palm trees as twigs on a distant beach.  The surprise width of the lagoon foreshadowed the surprise width of the reef, whose sharp corrugations I now traversed carefully, treading my booties through a minefield of urchins, fire coral, and other toxic terrors.  Eventually, where the bubbly aftermath of the oncoming waves surged against my shins, I discovered another surprise:  what from the beach looked like playful splashes of foam resolved, upon closer inspection, into hissing whitewater cauldrons powerful enough to blast me off my feet.  "Holy s--t!" I muttered to myself.  "It's bigger than I thought."

  

Rather than pause to reassess the situation, I let my enthusiasm override my caution and took advantage of a lull to paddle hurriedly seaward, angling toward the take-off area.  Lured fully into the surf zone, I finally understood why I had such difficulty determining wave height from the beach.  Off the headland, a dark shadow formed in the sea, accompanied by a great suction of water dredging off the shallows, leaving the reef almost dry.  Where shadow and suction met, a lip pitched forward, impacting below sea level just inches from the exposed coral.  Invisible from the beach, the full scope of this dynamic did not reveal itself until witnessed from a waterfront seat.

 

Perfect, or perfectly deadly?  That lip is impacting below sea level, inches from  exposed coral.  Photo: S. Jacques Stratton

Driven more by a sense of showmanship than a real interest in riding the dredging demons, I waited on the periphery, hoping an amiable shoulder would offer an entry point that didn't entail a vision of my body impaled upon coral heads.  That game soon ended when I padded for, backed out of, and nearly got sucked over the falls on a wave I initially judged as head high but which morphed into a 10' face.  Deciding to make discretion the better part of valor, I made my way back to the beach.

     

It's out there, if you want it--the jungle path, the hidden cove, the perfect (and perhaps perfectly deadly) wave.  You won't know until you go.  My advice:  bring a helmet, and don't surf alone.