After sleeping in a very average room that had brown water coming out the taps, I left Siberut Island on a slow ferry for Tua Pejat on Sipora Island. It is one of the hubs for accessing the many surf spots in the central Mentawais.
There are fancy surf resorts on the smaller surrounding islands or budget accommodation in Tua Pejat. After having not worked for a year, I chose the cheaper option.
Just before entering Tua Pejat, we sailed past some islands, which gave a great perspective of what was to come.
Needless to say, the smaller islands surrounding Sipora are beautiful and breath taking. Tua Pejat itself was not as beautiful with small houses constructed of metal sheeting and wood. The houses were built on top of each other and line the entire beach. The sand itself was ridden with plastic. Indonesia definitely has the worst plastic pollution I have experienced. Every day I see people throwing plastic on the ground or in the ocean. Hopefully the government will educate their people soon, better yet let’s ban plastic production world wide!
I met two locals who took me surfing for a few days. They were fun to be around and I thoroughly enjoyed surfing with them. We used small boats with a single outboard engine, and a rock as an anchor. Now that was a first!
One of the famous surf spots in the area is telescopes, a perfect left hander that runs for over 150m. The level of surfing there was really high, as can be seen from the photos below.
Another spot that we surfed was suicides, a super shallow right. This wave is also for experienced surfers only as the rocks start to stick out of the water when the tide starts dropping.
Photo credit: Weewee https://www.instagram.com/wee_mhd
I took my drone for a spin and managed to capture the clear blue water from above. It is always worth flying to get a bird’s eye view.
I hope to get some better shots in the next few days of the surf, when the new swell arrives!