I surf. I ride bikes too, but if I had to choose between surfing or biking, surfing would always win. If I could start over again in S.E. Asia I would go back in time 20 years to when I first settled here in Thailand and do it all over again but in Indonesia somewhere. Somewhere with amazing waves in every direction. Phuket is a stone's throw from Indonesia, so surf trips to Indo are a main stay of my lifestyle here. I can be in a taxi to Phuket airport in the morning and surfing glass bombs at sunset either in Bali or Sumatra the same day.
The Indo surf trip is an iconic rite of passage for every Australian surfer, perhaps comparable to the Californian surfer making the trip to Hawaii the first time. We grow up hearing about mythical waves with exotic names like Uluwatu, and Padang Padang. Waves that are impossibly perfect on youtube and for us older guys, pictures of waves in surf magazines that are so perfect it's almost incomprehensible to believe they exist.
This little post is about a trip to a little known spot, in fact so little known it borders on, dare I say it, secret. It's far from the crowded and pumping left handers of Bali, or the famous glass barrels of the Mentawais. It is instead in an entirely unromantic, often dirty, swell battered section of rocky coastline on the far western tip of Java. Getting there is a long shitty taxi ride from Jakarta (picture above) south to the industrialized coastline with our first destination a crappy little town called Cimaja. Here there is a nice wave that breaks on a black volcanic beach year round though best in the months of may thru to October when the trades blow and the wind is consistently offshore. Here are some pics from Cimaja.
Me and my bro checking out the waves ready to enter. The water is kinda mucky and behind the break are fishing boats and tankers, down the coast a little is a filthy commercial port.
Pretty small waves that day but we didn't mind - good shape, no wind and uncrowded.
So it's from this crappy port town of Cimaja that the the fun begins. From here you can find your way along the coast to the villages and townships that are scattered between the headlands as you head further west towards the end of Java - the straights that separate Indonesias most populous island from the wilds of Sumatra and the volcano that everyone has heard of - Krakatoa. There's a little village somewhere along here called Sarwana - Its not my habit to tell people about it but I feel like here at Hive it's a safe secret. An in this tiny village which by the way has no cars - its just walking and small scooters, is a long windswept, wave battered beach with impossible waves. And at the far end of this beach is a rocky headland with a reef that creates a bloody perfect 300m long lefthand wave that holds swell from 2 - 20 foot. The water is clear and clean and turtles and sharks join you in the lineup. Each time you get a wave it takes 20 mins to paddles back to the peak. And the best part of all - there's bloody nobody there except you and your surf buddy.
Here's me on that wave - its a pic I posted in my post about Kelly Slater so I figured it was fair to expand on where this pic was taken. This was on a small but perfect day, no wind and a solid 4 foot swell pumping like a wave machine.
Here's what the wave is like from the shoreline. Locals come down to fish, swim and play in the rocky pools in front of the break. This pic is the last 100m of the wave. Its already run a solid 20mm from the top of the point. Its epic!
Me and my bro shared a room at a little homestay in the village. Im not kidding - we had an aircon room and three meals a day for 10$ each. The Indo 4g network is as good as anything in the west and costs nearly nothing so we were able to keep working (we both are digital nomads).
To make the surf trip just perfect was delicious cheap ice cold beer after surf every day, and meeting awesome people visiting from Jakarta - because although this place is well off the international surfer's radar, it's a popular getway for the young middle class of Jakarta.
Im jobiker and surf trips to Indo are my favourite thing! Peace!