Macaronis Resort Report

MACARONI’S SURF RESORT MENTAWAI ISLANDS

Here we are back with our second report for 2009. Indies Explorer is currently being done up in Padang and as a friend, Matt Graziano, had just arrived in Padang and was headed out for some waves at Macas, I decided to come along too for the trip, especially as a swell was forecasted to hit on Saturday, a day after our arrival at Macaronis. Tried to talk the Stickman into coming along, but being busy with his work in Padang, it ended up being just the two of us.

After Matt arrived, we headed down to the Ambu Ambu Ferry and up to our AC cabins. Unusually, we spoke for only an hour if that, then I began to fall asleep. After getting in from an international flight, it should have been Matt falling asleep, and me downstairs having a cold Bintang, but on this occasion that wasn’t the case. We had a comfortable trip over that night, and arrived in Sikakap at around 7am the next morning.

As the Indies Explorer was in Padang docking, we instead caught a long boat around to Macaronis. It turned out to be a rocky old ride, and especially as it was one of the smaller long boats available in Sikakap, hired from our mate Ucok, this re-enforced why it’s such a luxury to have Indies Explorer dedicated to doing return trips between Macas and Sikakap on Fridays throughout the season.

After riding out some largish swells, not ground swells, but produced by some localized Westerly storms, we arrived at Macas and chilled out for a while before going for an arvo surf. Afterwards I realized I had forgotten my short board that had been left in Padang on the Indies Explorer. Anyway, the waves were pretty average at that stage, but as there was just the two of us, we were stoked anyway and was just good to get in the water after a couple of weeks in Padang. That evening we enjoyed an awesome Sumatran chicken curry that Sonny cooked, and went back to our villas to do some emails…

Spewing, the internet connection was not working… um I think there must be a cable unplugged (?), what possibly could be wrong with it? Anyway after trying this and that, we decided I needed to go to Sikakap the next day to sort out the problem, as no communications is never much chop when you are so remotely located from anywhere.

Next day the swell had jacked a bit, we hit the surf early and surfed a few fun waves on our own with a small ground swell that was beginning to show, mixed in with a west wind swell from a storm that had hit the night before. Waves were fun; we spent about 3 hours in the water before I decided it was time to hit Sikakap to try getting a few emails out and also ask our IT guy in Padang, what the problem was with our internet connection at the island …

I left Matt to it, and then hiked overland to Silabu, got on a motor bike and travelled the 1.5 hours to Sikakap through the jungle. It’s funny at a time like this when we are not officially open, the hardships you go through to do anything in this remote place I thought, little would guests realize when they visit and everything is properly setup for them. I stayed the afternoon in Sikakap, got a few emails off, and then headed back to Macaronis that evening, after grabbing instructions from our IT employee about fixing the internet connection at Macas.

Arriving back at Silabu late, I then hiked to Macas in the dark with a small torch on the back of a lighter. Bit of a mission, lost my way once, but fortunately the track was defined enough to arrive safely to Macas beach. No snakes or crocodiles sighted, but heaps of glow worms flying around all over the place in the jungle which looked unreal, a bit like the lights you see in the water when driving a speedboat at night.

After arriving to Macas Beach, I then waded across the lagoon (the boys couldn’t hear me yelling out to them from the other side !!), and then went to fix the internet, but still no luck …… frustrating …. So I decided after having a solid meal of chicken rendang, considering it was Sunday the next day and the swell was picking up, the best bet was to surf all day Sunday then head to Sikakap Sunday evening to catch up on email staying the night in Sikakap, then head back to Macas Monday morning..

Sunday delivered near perfect small but fun waves, we had a morning and arvo surf, probably 6 hours in the water in total that day. Matt and I were swapping wave after wave and considering there is usually not a lot of paddling to be done when surfing at Macaronis, that afternoon we were both pretty warn out and sun burnt, then it was time to head back to Sikakap…. So again I hiked up to Silabu Village, got on the motor bike and headed off on the dirt track again through the jungle…

That night Sikakap greeted me with a few well earned cold Bintang beers, and I managed to catch up on my emails and finally find out what was up with the internet connection…. Pretty simple really, it had been cut off because the agent in Padang had not paid the bill !!! So after expressing my dis-satisfaction with all the motor bike hours I’d been doing, they fixed the problem and said the internet would be back on in 24 hours….. great, wish they had of told me that last time..!!

That morning I rose in Sikakap for some Nasi Goreng, and then decided to get going back to Macas early, as I had a feeling that Monday was going to be a good day of waves, and certainly could not let Matt have it all to himself!! So I got going, also feeling a little bit dry on the tongue after a few Bintangs polished off the night before.

Arriving back at Silabu, I hiked down to Macas to find that the swell had jacked again, and on Monday we had some really fun waves that arvo, again just the two of us out with the odd 4-5 footer coming through. One such set rolled through and I took the opportunity to pull into a nice green cavern, only to find I was a little deep and after some travel time, and doing a superman dive forwards, I swam to the surface to find my board ‘old favorite’, had been snapped clean in half. I’d had that board for about 4 years and although a little old and cigarette stained looking, she was a fun little 6’2, now going to the doctor to be joined together as a spare in the shed.

I raced back to shore after seeing that last set, and fortunately Uwah (our long boat driver), had a nice 6’3 on hand that Bootsy had given him as a tip the year before (good on ya Bootsy!!). So then Uwah offered for me to borrow it, and I was back out there. Matt was getting some really nice waves, and we both surfed almost til dark that arvo, with some solid sets rolling through finally offering a bit more juice…

That night, starving, we had a basic meal of vegetable omelets, noodles and rice. As there were no guests staying at the resort, basically Matt and I with Sony, Uwah and Hendrik, were happy to kick back and do it camping style. As such the bar and restaurant was closed, and it wasn’t long before we hit the sack and passed out after a long day of waves that arvo.

Tuesday morning, well what do you know. A higher tide in the morning and light north winds again, which meant Macas Right also had some nice waves coming through which looked very tempting. We first went out to Macas Left, checked it out, looked average (we thought the swell had dropped), but decided to go for a quick paddle before heading over to Macas Right, which looked really clean with off-shore winds.

But it wasn’t long before Huey started sending through some bigger sets again at Macas, and suddenly we were going wave for wave for a good hour or so, with sets at 4 feet plus, and the odd bomb that was opening up and offering a nice hollow take off, with fun walls to whack down the line.  Although Macas Right looked really tempting, again it was just the two of us, so we decided to make the most of it at Macas and got a couple of hours of Solid waves before it was time for breaky, and me to make tracks back to Sikakap to catch the ferry back to Padang.

I left Matt at Macas, perhaps wishing at that stage the resort was open so he had some company, but then at least he still had some really nice waves coming through on the door-step, and it isn’t very often anybody can surf Macaronis entirely to themselves, so I said farewells and told him to make the most of it..!!

We managed to get a few photos of the waves over the past 4 days, but nothing spectacular as when the waves where pumping, of course we were both in the water. Certainly shows that it was fun enough though with just the 2 of us out, although not quite tubular spectacular – such conditions we look forward to seeing from March onwards when the roaring forties start to kick in.

Our first scheduled trip for the 2009 season (after a soft opening trip just with 3 guests at end of January), is on Thursday March 06, and just with a couple of guys booked at this stage. We then have some couples visiting over the rest of March (some staying for the full month), but mainly up until the end of April just half a dozen guests booked on each trip so far, so a great time to come visit in early season with 8 day / 9 night trips up for grabs from just US$1350 per person.

Drop us a line if you’re interested, and we would be happy to fill you in more on the details.

We will be back with another report shortly, hopefully a few more empty barrels before the season really heats up..!!

Cheers and best everything…

Mark @ Macas

Macaronis Resort Trip Report No.1… Jan 22nd – 31st 2009

Well it was a great first trip back to Macaronis Resort to start the 2009 season. Prior to this week a couple of crew had shown up and as Mikey had stayed with us prior, and being a mate of the Stickman, we allowed him and his 3 mates camp out with the Indo security staff that were hanging out on the island, and from the grapevine it was apparently worth it, as they scored a nice solid swell that hit Macas at the end of their stay in mid January.

For the crew on this last trip, being our first official trip back in 2009, it was just myself, Christian from Gelong (a regular Winki surfer), Dylan from New Zealand (a skipper in the Med and local to the north Island of NZ) and Margy his lovely companion, who got heaps of good shots of the trip and got into a bit of diving also.

For the first day it was just us, only just surfable at Macas but still plenty of fun with 2-3 ft sets peeling down the reef and just the 3 of us out. I think that first day we spent a good 3-4 hours surfing and from there it just got gradually better and better by the day.

The next 3-4 days we continued to surf with still not another soul in sight except the villagers fishing on the edge of the reef; Christian and Dylan actually clocked in well over 8 hours in the water a couple of days, and although the surf was lacking in power to deliver hollow barrels, it was still consistent enough and fun for just 3 guys out, and both Dylan and Christian agreed they had had more waves in some of those sessions in one day, than in 2-3 months back home.

Mid trip, an increase in period caused the swell to neaten up and jack a little with a bit more of a ground swell quality to it, and then we were starting to see a few nice ones come through. Not long after this a charter boat showed up, so I decided to let the boys tackle it with the 8 or so other guys taking turns while I caught up on a bit of work on the laptop, still looking to hunt down a few extra bookings for the 2009 season. The visiting charter boat guys only stuck around for a couple of days and during that time the boys said they were still getting heaps of fun waves.

During the trip we all enjoyed some great diving and scored some nice reef fish we speared for BBQ dinners. And now I mention it, I also forgot to mention the 4 x 10 – 15kg Tenggiri we caught on the way round to Macas on the first day, that kept the fridge stocked full of fish for most of the trip – we all caught one each in only 3 hours of having the lines out !!

Anyway to finish the trip off, we were due to head north on Indies Explorer and spend the final day up at Lances Right on the Friday when the swell report had predicted a pulse in the swell with another increased period meaning more groundswell qualities.

The night prior we decided to polish the remainder of beer off, and we found a stray bottle of Sambuka floating around outback that got in the way of a relatively early evening, which left us all a little rough the following morning…. good thing the wind had blown the waves out the next morning with a big storm coming in from the West, definitely no good for Macas, but good winds for HT’s which is where we had planned to head that evening after dinner.

However, the wind kept blowing and blowing and began to howl from the west so 3 big screen movies later in the bar, we realized we weren’t going any where that evening and we all settled to sleep in the comfort of our own villas and instead rise and shine at 7am to get on Indies Explorer and head north.

We rose that next morning to absolute haggard weather, and we got wet bums and everything else, after a good feed of hot vegemite on toast and coffee, on the way over to Silabu Island where Indies Explorer was anchored. We were then on our way to Lances Right, where we arrived at about 1pm that arvo. I got stuck into some strange classic book called the “Alchemist” while the boys got 3 hours in the water and surfed 3-4 ft HT’s off-shore and clean with only 6 guys out, and both being natural footers were stoked to finally get a bit more juice and forehand barrels. Dylan came in and said that his last wave that day had totally made his trip.

That evening we headed back in to Padang, and the boys and Margy departed to the airport. I went home and had a well earned sleep and caught up with the family. Both boys said they’ll be back in November…. I hope they are, with Margy as well, as they were a top crew to have visit and look forward to their return.  Otherwise I’ll be dropping in to see you on the way home Christian to try some of that Winki pop  ;  )

So for this year, we still have plenty of room left, in fact we are still only 35% booked for the season (as of Jan 31 2009) with some trips still not having any guests booked at all. Also the beaut thing about Macaronis Resort is we do not operate on a minimum numbers policy like most charter boats, we operate no matter what, meaning you can book on your own or with a couple of mates, no worries.

Prices have just been slashed to encourage a few more crew to come on board for the 2009 season, despite the global economic woes that have had everybody stressing. What better way to relieve the stress of the grind than to come out to the Mentawais on a trip to Macas Resort, from just US$1350 (or approx AU$2,000) for a resort and surf charter boat combo trip of 8 days / 9 nights…??

Do yourself a favor and check out our Specials page at www.macaronisresort.com/specials.php, and hopefully we’ll see you out here later in the year !!

Cheers all, and hope Huey is treating you well where ever you are !!

Check out our trip photos above, thanks Margy ; )

Mark @ Macaronis Resort.