Yeeeeessss! One dream fulfilled: Boattrip to Indo done! That means specifically: 12 days of blissful surfing on some of Indo’s uncrowded waves with my best friend Joy, five mates from Germany and a friend from Belgium.
The route was Rote – Savu – Sumba with the Sama Sama from Balicamp. The Sama Sama is a 23-Meter Motor-/Sailing boat, all in wood, just beautiful. The crew consisted of the French Skipper Joachim who was also our Surfguide, a Balinese captain called Wayan who was also a cook, another Indonesian cook (Agus) and a technician (Ludin) who was also our personal driver. Perfect.
We all arrived in Bali a few days prior to the trip. First of all that we can build up a bit of paddle strength, and secondly because we wanted to get to know each other a bit. Some of us have never met before, but everyone knew at least someone of the Crew.
Departure day: At Nghurah Rai Airport in Denpasar, all 8 of us with a ton of baggage and heavily packed double board bags (17 pieces all in all).
Me: Passport collector and responsible for checking in all of us and our stuff. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a problem at all. THANK YOU Garuda.
The guy at the check in just looked at our pile of luggage and bags and asked (with a bit of despair in his voice): That’s all yours? Me: Yes. The guy: Ok, I just calculated that you can take 160 kg in total with you. Just put everything on the scales.
Ah, that sounds like a good deal. Done. Everything checked in. Off we went. Not one Rupiah spent on bribing. And nothing got lost. Another big THANK YOU Garuda!
We safely arrived in Kupang, Timor where we got picked up. All the luggage went into the two cars, all the boardbags on the roofs. Ahhhh, there we go. First problem: They only brought two strings and wanted to fix each pile of boards on each car with only one single string. Guess what: That’s not a good idea.
But we brought some strings ourselves so we secured our boards (they’re our most valuable baggage after all) and off we went. Had to wait a bit at the beach and had the pleasure to observe a public ferry filling up with passengers. That means, because it was high tide, it was a bit difficult getting to the (small) ferry without getting wet. So one of the employees just carried person after person on his back from the beach to the boat. What a spectacle.
Then, finally, the Dingi (small motorboat) came and brought us to the Sama Sama. Finally there. What a feeling! Ah, I almost forgot: We got a beautiful greeting: Pouring rain! But that only lasted half an hour and it was the first and last rain we got during the whole trip. The other greeting was a delicious dinner, and at 8 pm we felt like it was already midnight. Slept like a stone, awesome!
First stop was Rote, Nembrala (we all understood Umbrella, and thought that was the name for the whole next day and asked ourselves why the hell the spot was called umbrella). The crossing from Kupang to Rote was about 10 hours, so we arrived at our first surfspot first thing in the morning. It’s just incredible to wake up to a blazing red sunrise, stretch a bit, brush your teeth, get your board and hop into the water. I stayed a bit on the outer side of the spot cause I was afraid going to the inside. So I enjoyed a few rather short waves, nothing really exciting. And longingly watched the good waves on the inside passing by. After a while I got very very pissed off and paddled to the inside, afraid but very very determined to get one of those good waves. And guess what: Perfect wave came rolling towards me and I rocked it. All the loooooong way down to the end. Anger instantly turned to pure happiness. It’s that easy to make me happy 😉
Went to the island later in the afternoon to get some young coconuts. Life there is a lot slower than in Bali. It was a nice experience for a change. I guess, Bali must have been similar 15 years ago. After taking loads of photographs, watching all the pigs and goats freely running around and wandering to the only bar to drink the coldest beer of the island, we happily went back to the boat for a snack.
I skipped the sunset session. It was low tide and the waves looked vicious. So I decided to walk over the reef and take pictures of my friends surfing. It was a really long walk over the reef and I had trouble to find the spot where my friends surfed. But then, oh my, big big waves hollowly breaking, sometimes tubing. Very fast waves. Very scary waves. Hahahaha, I was quiet happy I didn’t go. So took some pictures of our Joachim and other Surfers, but none of my friends. They were telling me afterwards that they were scared to death and just tried to stay as far away from the waves as possible.
Played a bit of backgammon against my friend’s iphone after dinner. Then the police came. It seemed that our papers weren’t good so we had to leave immediately. Well, we wanted to, but had some problems with the engine, so had to stay overnight. A very wavy wobbly shaky night. That’s what my friends said anyway. I didn’t feel anything as I slept like a stone again. Hahahaha.
… to be continued …
Kim Faraway 
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