September 25th – October 6th / 2 – 6 Feet
The Byron Bay x Lorne connection leave no stone unturned throughout the Mentawai Island chain in and out of the water
Words and pics | Uncle Lip
The Group
Made of best mates, mutual friends and the bond of all being from the east coast. The vibes were great on board The Mighty Mango again this week. Plenty of talent in the water and a whole lot of laughs all round. Heaps of antics night and day made the trip feel like it was over before it started. The good times always go the quickest.
Conditions/Forecast
The southerly current still flows up the west coast of Sumatra and the water is still cold and green so it was a refreshing relief to see the southerly winds back down for the mornings opening up plenty of options. No flat days and a few mystery swells made for all day surfing. Moving around in our 80 foot live-a-board or jumping in the Foxy Lady for a strike mission we guaranteed we were on the best spot daily.
Standout Sessions
The day of all days!! It was a Saturday and the AFL grand final was on and we already had the invitation to watch the game next door on the Indies Trader III. In true fashion we woke to pumping waves and after a morning of exchanging barrels it was onto the footy. Vibes were truly high this day with some of the lads saying it was the best days of their life’s. As we watched the footy and enjoyed a few too many drinks the waves kept rolling through and the guys who did not follow the footy found themselves sitting out there by themselves for the second half of the day picking any wave they pleased…none of our guest were surfing that afternoon hahaha.
Wave of the trip
Half of us were actually out on the Foxy Lady chasing other waves but as we cruised back into anchorage to board the Mango we saw the back of an absolute bomb and we all looked at each other and said “wow that one looked solid” and sure enough when we had reached the mothership we had been told Rory was on that wave we had seen from behind and he rode it like a champ. Lucky enough TYG PHOTO was on the scene as you see the clip attached.
Rory deeper than Dingo out snapper.
Personalities
Characters and battlers. But what else would you expect from a bunch of east coasts 30-year old’s… Over 30 different nicknames for only 10 mates……that is when you know you have a tight group of mates together for a surf trip.
Food
As we all know you don’t see Situ out of that kitchen much and the variety of food keeps coming out and out and out. It was the fresh fish that had the boys frothing this week and a new love for beer battered GT.
Fish on
With the option of going fishing our surfed-out group of lads opted for an early afternoon anchorage. Sure, enough itchy feet got the best of everyone, so we jumped in the Foxy Lady for a sunset trawl/booze cruise. After quickly circumnavigating the closest island, we decided to hit the corner of the next island. As we crossed the shallow ledge 2 out of 2 lines went off and we landed our first fish for the evening. As we quickly circled around again, we scored another double hook-up before we even got the lines completely out. The excitement grew and the beer flowed as the fish took to our lures for the next couple of runs. We actually ran out of daylight. Overall, it was a great haul, the best this year. Everyone on board had their own turn to land a fish. Now this is what we call fishing!!! Will definitely be hitting that honey hole again.
With all the nicknames it’s obvious that there would be 1000 quotes this trip but it was Chef Situ who had the lads constantly quoting him and adding their own touch and if you’ve ever been LUCKY enough to meet Situ you know his ONE-LINERs will have you in stitches.
What would we do with out our Situ
Special Thanks
Big shout out to Walker Daly and Indies III crew for letting us commandeer the boat for the footy and many thanks to my crew who put up with 10 drunken pirates for 11 days.
Yours truly Uncle Lip