Generation Nias

The year was 1975, and the two Australian surfers who were travelling through the Indonesian archipelago had no idea of what lay ahead of them while crossing a large island off the coast of Sumatra. Riding along the tortuous road that led through a thick rainforest, past muddy rivers, endless rice fields and tiny Christian villages, these contemporary explorers were chasing a dream in true romantic fashion. At that point in time the word “Nias” didn’t ring a bell yet in surfers’ imagination, but thanks to Kevin Lovett and John Geisel, plus Peter Troy who they bumped into by chance on the ferry from Sumatra, things were about to change.

It was at the very end of that muddy road that the two mates first laid their eyes on something that would change their lives forever and redefine the concept of tropical perfection for many generations of surfers to come. There it was, peaking, barrelling and peeling along the western edge of a large bay – emerald wall after emerald wall of raw Indian Ocean energy coming out of a deep trench, climbing the slope in the reef and turning into the most stunning wave ever witnessed by a surfer. That was the end of the road, both physically and metaphorically: they had found what they were looking for. They had arrived at the bay of Lagundri.
They invited Peter Troy to share their first proper session but for the rest of that season they had those waves all to themselves. And the next summer, after John Geisel had died of malaria, Lovett was back at Lagundri again, surfing the wave alone but for his one travel companion, his brother in-law to be.

They didn’t just find their own tropical getaway; what they found was the first world-class righthander in a land mainly known for its dreamy lefts like Uluwatu, Padang Padang and G-Land.

The equatorial latitude of Nias, at 2° South, guarantees shelter from the south-easterly trade winds that blow in Bali, Java and the Nusa Tenggara islands during the dry season. On one hand this seasonal wind adds the magic touch of offshore winds to the world-class lefthanders of G-Land and the Bukit Peninsula, while on the other, the same winds blow onshore at virtually every righthand setup in the region. The light winds in the equatorial area of Indonesia left Mother Nature free to play with every bend in the coast and each bit of exposed reef, and it didn’t take long for surfers to figure this out. Quite predictably, word of a dreamy righthander somewhere in Indonesia spread far beyond the close circle of friends of Troy and Lovett, so much so that by the early ’80s the village of Sorake, a tiny hamlet of fishermen and rice farmers in front of the spot, was already one of the most visited surfing destinations in all of Indonesia.

Driving along the same ramshackle road and chasing the same dream 33 years later, I can’t help but wonder how much of what I’m seeing out of the minivan window has changed since Lovett and Geisel were here in 1975. At first glance, it doesn’t seem to be much: the air is still steamy, the jungle is still thick and hostile, the road is scattered with muddy potholes, the bridges are still precarious and the village kids that chase our van as we drive by still have that timeless, astonished look in their eyes. As island life flows by in slow motion like frames of a faded Super 8 film, I realise that it might be 2008 for us, but it could still be 1975 out there.

Getting to Nias was a hell of a mission back then and it still is. My journey from Bali consists of almost 20 hours of absolute chaos amidst delayed flights, a missing boardbag, a few dozen frantic phone calls and a thick wad of rupiah for the ubiquitous fixer to ensure my boards make it to Medan on time to get on the next flight. They don’t, but somehow they materialise in Gunung Sitoli a couple of hours later, and with a 6-8ft swell on the rise, a 17 second swell period and an ideal 203-degree SSW angle, I consider that as a sign of good things to come.

Even if the assignment for this trip is try to understand how three decades of surf tourism, two major earthquakes and a tsunami have changed one of the most iconic waves in the world and affected the lives of those who shape their existence around it, my own personal aim is to contract the Nias bug, get barrelled and live to tell the tale. It seems like even the original dream, like most things on this island, hasn’t changed a bit in the last 33 years. I wonder whether the small village of Sorake is any different now from how it was portrayed back in the early ‘80s in surf magazine articles: a modest village of fishermen and farmers, crossed by a single road, devoid of electricity, running water or any other modern day comfort. Photographer John Callahan, whose first trip here dates back to 1981, doesn’t notice many differences as we approach the village on the single-lane road. “The only difference I can see,” he comments from the front seat, “is that now all the houses have been rebuilt with concrete after the earthquakes, but everything else is just like I remember”.
Although nowadays most of the local families rely on seasonal surf tourism as their main source of income, the lifestyle and overall vibe of Sorake remains pretty constant. Tourists and locals alike wake up with the roosters at dawn, take care of business during the daylight hours and go to sleep shortly after sunset. As simple as it sounds, that’s the power of having no power. The surf, and evening Bintangs and chat on the porch, are still the only entertainment available, but surfers seem to adapt well to this lifestyle and the absence of the comforts of modern surf travel. A mosquito net and a fan are still considered the height of luxury in most guesthouses, while air conditioning, satellite television, and internet access belong to a world literally light years away.

The way this place has evolved after the advent of surf tourism is interesting to say the least: its development over the years has followed a path that’s antithetical to the rest of the Indonesian surf destinations. While most areas frequented by surfers have seen increasing coastal development (just think of the exploitation of the Bukit Peninsula in Bali or the flourish of luxury surf resorts in the neighbouring Mentawai Islands), Sorake never experienced such a destiny. For some reason Nias had the misfortune, or the fortune, of being in the media spotlight ahead of time and consequently has been able to dodge the seemly unavoidable and unconditional exploitation of its resources. Even at the apex of its popularity during the ’80s and early ’90s, the island remained an outpost that was too difficult to reach and too challenging to deal with, mostly luring hardcore surfers of the extremely adventurous kind.

John Geisel himself, one of the original party with Lovett and Troy and perhaps the first surfer ever to slip into one of these beautiful green tubes, had a thirst for surf exploration, but he paid for it with his life. Having contracted malaria on that first trip to Nias, he died from it nine months later in Iran while en route overland to London. Then, when high-end surf tourism took off in Indonesia around the late ‘90s, the aura of Nias was overshadowed by the flashy discoveries and media saturation of the nearby Mentawais, leaving the village of Sorake in a state of picturesque but poor isolation.
Rumours of frequent petty theft, violent crime and increasing tension in the line-up between local surfers and visitors, turned travelling surfers away from Nias and onto boat charters in the Mentawais. There was a new breed of surf travellers that seemed to think: “Who needs Nias anymore, now that we have Lance’s Right?” As the new archetype of tropical perfection shifted from Lagundri to Lance’s, on Sipura Island in the Mentawais, so did the media spotlight. Hordes of surfers followed, leaving the rustic huts of Sorake empty. It was as if the island’s own peculiarities and limitations conspired to protect the village and the line-up, from the new wave of globalised exploitation.

By then most of the surfers who were filling line-ups in the Mentawais were ‘surf tourists’ rather than ‘surf travellers’, and their demands for instant surf gratification by moving the boat to any spot with a surfable wave didn’t chime well with Lagundri’s fickle nature. Before the March 2005 earthquake raised the whole island by an estimated one metre, the wave only broke on south-angle swells bigger than 4ft and couldn’t compete in consistency with the multitude of waves in the Mentawais. That factor alone meant that a high-end surf resort at Nias wasn’t an option – after all, who would spend 250 hard-earned dollars a day just to sit and wait, often in the pouring rain, with no internet and nothing to do, for the swell to get big enough from the correct angle to make a world-class wave? Nias required a courtship longer than two weeks to get to know her intimately, let alone be conquered, and by the late 1990s surfers simply didn’t have that kind of patience.

The Nias previously known by surfers finally ruptured on the night of March 8th, 2005 when a powerful earthquake shook the island, leaving death and destruction in its wake. It was a tough blow for the island’s inhabitants, occurring just a few months after the devastating tsunami of December 2004, which taxed the disaster response ability of the Indonesian government to the limit. The March earthquake could easily have been the death sentence for Nias surf tourism, but a lucky rise in the sea floor as a result of it meant the wave actually got better than it was before – more consistent, a lot more hollow on the peak and the inside section, and less tide-affected.

Before the good news spread, however, rumours circulated that the village had been wiped out and the wave wasn’t breaking at all anymore. Ironically, that summer, instead of celebrating the 30th anniversary since the first wave was ridden in Nias, the locals were left wondering if Sorake’s luck had finally run out.

“2005 was a terrible year for our economy,” explains Avenus Zagoto, one of the most respected local surfers. “Hardly any visiting surfers came that whole season. Many of them avoided Nias after they heard all those made-up stories about the tsunami and earthquake. They were scared by all the rumours of destruction, epidemics and theft. The truth is that the wave improved after the earthquake and we rebuilt the few damaged guesthouses almost immediately. But still, for a couple of years we basically had the spot to ourselves. It was paradoxical: some of us had lost everything on land, but we were surfing the best waves of our lives right here in front…“

Most of the local boys had to leave Sorake to seek a better life or simply to find a job. Some got seasonal jobs as chefs, deckhands, or drivers on surf charter boats in the Mentawais, some worked hard construction labour in Medan or Jakarta, while others travelled all the way to Bali to try their luck with the holiday makers. In Bali, they got exposed to the opulence of mass tourism and it didn’t take much for reality to kick in hard.

“The feeling among the locals is that we’ve been really unlucky compared to other parts of Indonesia,” continues Avenus. And he’s right: the Nias people felt like they were in the right place at the wrong time, at least over the last three decades. And this brings us to yet another Nias paradox: Sorake is the only major surf spot in Indonesia where the wave quality has actually improved, but the development on land and the quality of life of the locals has remained unchanged.

The local surfers, as a result, have had surfing paths that took the opposite course from many of their Indonesian peers. While tourism and media attention has opened the doors of international stardom and sponsor endorsements for the Balinese and Javanese surfers, the kids of Sorake haven’t shared the same fortune. Despite being as good and progressive surfers as their Balinese peers, most of the local surfers still ride broken boards left behind by visitors and share shorts and t-shirts for months on end. Understandably, they’re hungry to finally grasp some of that good life: most visitors, myself included, tend to confuse their attitude with arrogance or insolence, but it’s actually their way to vent and express motivation to get a share of the pie.

The sun has yet to rise when, early the next morning, for the first time I find myself face to face with the primary element of this story: the fabled righthander. As I try to rub some stiffness out of my back by stretching on the balcony of our guesthouse, I can already see six or seven guys sitting in the predawn line-up. A smaller set peels down the edge of a huge reef that’s completely exposed despite the high tide, awkwardly sticking out of the ocean. “The reef didn’t look anything like this back in 1981,” says Callahan, “even at low tide it was always covered by some water”. We turn towards the top of the point, a mysto reef called Indicator, as a solid set jacks right on the edge of the reef and turns into a backless drainer, flawless but crazy shallow. Mind-surfing the wave, it feels a bit like flirting with death, even from the reassuring safety of the porch. They say it’s rideable sometimes, and if it’s true then it has to be the shallowest wave on earth, no doubt about it.

Back out on the main peak, The first wave of the set ends its crazy run in the deep-water channel in front of the keyhole, and seems to vanish into thin air as if swallowed by the depth of the ocean; meanwhile the surfers on the peak start to paddle hastily, deeper and deeper, fighting for position. For a few seconds the approaching set remains almost imperceptible, before the waves pop up again as dark, intimidating walls when they hit a massive step in the seabed. It looks more like perfect Off the Wall than Nias, but that doesn’t seem to stop the boys in the line-up from sitting impossibly deep and battling for position. You can almost smell the testosterone and bravado from up here.

They all freeze for a split second before the wave stalls and starts throwing its glassy lip, then one of the boys turns around and, with two casual strokes, commits to the latest possible take-off: the inner rail of his board and two fins are his only footing as he slides sideways across the 6ft wall. The thing is about to swallow him alive in a big closed-out wall, but with a naïve spontaneity he sets the rail at the bottom, over-extends his thin body into a contemporary soul arch and pulls into the daunting barrel. He disappears under the curtain for four, five, six seconds – not a chance he can backdoor that first heaving section, we think – and to our amazement emerges in a cloud of spray. He lays into a high-speed roundhouse cutback before pulling into the second section. Now I see what Avenus was talking about; that second section is the one that went through the most radical change. Before the earthquake it was known as a soft, picturesque shoulder, but now it generates a brand-new barrel section a dozen metres long, reminiscent of a Velzyland inside bowl. The surfer negotiates the second pit as if he’s taking a walk in the park, and as he reaches the exit the clock reads 6:14am. Just another new day for Justin Buulolo.

Nineteen years old and a Sorake native, Justin is, on any given day, one of the best surfers in the line-up, regardless of how many pros or psycho-chargers crowd the peak. The way he surfs his home spot and the lines he draws are simply amazing: every gesture looks so instinctive and every pose is so natural one gets the feeling that the wave adapts to his needs rather than vice versa. Although Justin and his peers get any wave they want and absolutely dominate one of the most competitive line-ups in Indonesia, back on the beach things don’t look so bright for them.

The isolation and the lack of any kind of infrastructure in the village is a real threat that stands in the way of their ambitions. Justin’s peers, such as Serius and Rahiel Wau, Avenus and Saldin Zagoto, Alex Buulolo and Sesuaican Dachi, are the third generation of local surfers. They dream of a chance to make it into the Indonesian surfing scene and regard sponsorship and competition as a goal, but isolation and prejudice seem to be killing their aspirations.
Nias is not Bali. There are no surf shops packed to the ceiling with brand new boards, clothes, and accessories, nor the visitors that buy them. There are no team managers for international labels eager to sponsor and spoil the best surfers, let alone photographers that can ensure them the required dose of international media coverage a sponsorship demands. And so, despite their surfing being right up there with the best of their Indonesian, Australian or American peers, they struggle to make a living and can only dream of riding a new stick, let alone owning one.

But it’s not just a matter of boards and shorts, the competitive surf scene as a whole is virtually non-existent in Nias. Any career ambition for these kids depends on whether or not they can prove themselves on the regional big stage of Bali and, as absurd as it sounds, most of them can’t afford the trip. Avenus is one of the lucky few that, after many sacrifices, finally managed to raise the money he needed to get to Bali by local ferry and long bus trips and enter a six star ISC (Indonesia Surfing Championship) contest. His dreams of glory sunk in the first heat, held in disappointing 1ft Kuta Beach close-outs.

For someone raised on rice, fish and gaping barrels, it’s hard to mind-surf those racy close-outs, let alone find the motivation to stand out among such fierce competition. If the mind-blowing surfing achieved by the local Balinese surfers isn’t intimidating enough, another major obstacle that the rest of Indonesian surfers have to face is prejudice.
As tolerant and open as the Balinese society may look from the outside, the rigid Hindu caste system and the general mistrust of fellow Indonesians (mostly Muslims and Christians from other islands) still plays a tremendous role in reducing career opportunities for the up-and-coming surfers of Nias. The Balinese take care of their own first, with non-Balinese a distant second, and confronted with this harsh reality, many talented Indonesian surfers end up returning to their villages from Bali, broke and disillusioned.

“The tourism industry in Nias is something we can’t really rely on yet,” continues Avenus. “Most travellers still tend to avoid the islands around Sumatra because of the lack of infrastructure, malaria, or ethnic clashes in areas such as Banda Aceh. Yet our island has everything to rival the rest of the country, both in natural beauty, cultural traditions and overall safety”.

But Nias never strove mindlessly after the Balinese tourist utopia.

“The people of Nias carry a cultural and historical heritage that dates back hundreds of years, but few of the visitors show any interest in it. All they want to do is surf, and even when it’s flat they never leave the village to experience some of the local culture. There are so many interesting things to see, like the Lompat Batu (a traditional exhibition in which the warriors test their courage and skills jumping over a stone wall) and it should attract more visitors”. Listening to his words, I find it interesting that he points to history and culture rather than nightclubs and bars. It’s as if they’re not ready to trade in their identity and traditions in the name of business at any cost.

The world around Sorake is moving fast though. Nias is, after all, just an hour and a half from Singapore. Rumours of a new airport planned in the town of Teluk Dalam have further fuelled the hopes of the locals. Residents of Sorake believe that the distance from Gunung Sitoli airport keeps most tourists from visiting the south side of the island. Truth to be told, it’s arguably the unreliability and difficulty of the domestic air links with mainland Sumatra that keeps tourists from the island, definitely not the three-hour bemo ride down to Sorake.

But the fact is, with each passing season more and more travelling surfers flock to Lagundri Bay and that’s despite the immense and largely unexplored wave potential of the rest of the island. In fact, the vast majority of surfers ignore the entire east coast of Nias and still gather on the main peak of Sorake. So, despite all the isolation and the struggles of its residents, its line-up is still one of the busiest in the whole Indian Ocean, even 33 years after its discovery. Thirty hungry surfers in the line-up are the norm nowadays, and it’s not rare to feel some tension on the peak, especially on the smaller or less consistent days.

Now that the wave is hollower and more intense than in the past, it appeals to a different group of hardcore tube chargers – surfers who spend whole months out there doing what it takes to claim their spot in the strict pecking order.
Young Australian pros, brave Brazilian tube riders, feral slab hunters and underground chargers keep the testosterone level in the line-up always high, fighting with a knife between their teeth for every set wave as if it could be their last. Thirty-three years have passed, but the place is still as intense as it gets. “The more things change, the more they stay the same” – jokes a smiley Avenus as he waxes his beaten up 6’3” round pin.

Many things, including the waves, have changed in the last 33 years. Others, like the fact that all the guesthouses and warungs are still owned and operated by local families, have stayed the same. Judging by the amount of waves that the locals get during each session though, the place is in good hands.

First published in The Surfer’s Path magazine, Issue 71, March/April, 2009.