All around this beautiful blue globe we all live on, waves are constantly breaking. Storms are brewing up, storms are dying down, surfers are preparing for the onslaught and surfers are breathing a sigh of relief as the swell slowly dies. Surfers are searching the internet, weather charts, swell predictions and any other relevant information to try and predict the next time the perfect swell will hit their beach, or deciding where they should travel to get the best waves from each and every storm worldwide.
As more and more people discover the joys of sliding down breaking waves, surfing spots will be more and more crowded. However, the world is a very big place and there are thousands of world class waves breaking right now with no one surfing them. Don’t believe me? For the past three weeks, the crew of Khulula has not surfed with more than two other people. Most surfs have been completely empty and the waves have been incredible. I would go so far as to say that the waves I have gotten over the past three weeks have been some of the best in my entire life.
So where are all these perfect waves with no one surfing them? Well… I am not going to tell. We have been fortunate enough to run into a pair of seasoned Indonesian explorers who quietly whispered rumours and locations to us; all followed directly by a stern warning about publicizing the location.
To this end, our GPS waypoints and locations on the google earth map on our website, may not show our true location but rather some other random set of co-ordinates we made up. We do this not only to protect the surfing spots, that still have managed to escape the hordes of like-minded surfers, but also to keep the adventure alive for others to follow.
The adventure, the unknown, the search to find uncharted waves is one of the major reasons we are out here. If locations of all these waves had been exposed by previous surfers, we would have been robbed of this incredible experience. The surfing world would be completely dissected and we would just be following a well trodden path from spot to spot. We would have been robbed of the elation of stumbling across an epic surf spot, to find it completely empty and the beach devoid of anything other than the deep green jungle and the blinding white sand. Very few other people will have surfed this wave, and they have all kept its location quiet so others willing to diverge from the path would be greeted by the same image.
Yesterday evening, right as the sun was setting, Khulula sailed into a promising-looking bay. The sun set before we were able to launch the dingy and look around. However this morning, after a quick trip in the dingy, we were greeted with increased swell size and four different waves. Two lefts and two rights, all empty and perfect. The reality of discovering your own wave is still out there for anyone willing to go looking…