The Real Kandui Surf Resort Mentawai Islands, Surf Up Date

Kandui Surf Resort Mentawai Islands
May 16th Surf Report by Justis St. John
PayDay…Ray coined this term years ago to describe when everything comes together for people who live in the Ments. Kandui’s #1 motto at the resort is “Tamu Satu” which basically translates into “Guest Number 1”. Every morning, we try to gauge how the waves will be for the day and how the guests can catch the best waves of their lives, which a lot of the time doesn’t translate into the waves we want. Countless times, we drive past big perfect barrels to surf fun rippable waves and surprising it’s rare to absolutely score the waves you dream of…but yesterday was definitely PayDay. With our guests taking off mid morning and the wind going light SE, our premier lefthander kicked in gear and broke for the first time this season. Seeing guests get the best wave of their life is a pretty common occurrence on a weekly basis here, but to see 2 workers claim the best wave they have ever gotten in one day is a pretty special day. The swell lasted all day and after 8 straight hours of barrels, we dragged ourselves back to the resort just in time to meet our new guests….what a day. Swell should be pumping this week for the guests, season is here!!!! – Justis
May 14th Surf Report by Justis St. John
Riflititis….the disease of catching Rifles as good as it gets and then coming back every year for the remainder of your days trying to catch it again. One of our favorite guests, Al Ramadan is back this week and coined this term last year after scoring the swell of the season. Al is a numbers guy and after scoring what Ray called “Maybe the best 5 days ever” spend the last year crunching both the wind and swell for the past 20 years and came up with this week as the highest probability date to score Rifles. After a couple days of fun Rifles, Al got his chance and found out really quick that Rifles both gives and takes away as he unfortunately hurt his wrist forcing him to sit the session out. Al’s a great guy and spent the session drinking Bintangs on the boat cheering the boys on while the sun dipped below Karangmajat Island…swell should hang around a couple more days for the rights, while the goofyfoots start eyeing the sw swell forecast to hit at the end of the trip…good time to be in the Ments! – Justis
May 11th Surf Report by Justis St John
The beginning of this trip was about slow as it gets in May. A super fun, but super small day at burgerworld, couple slow days at Nipussi and when the first swell on a stacked forecast didn’t show, our guests began to get a bit edgy…
Every trip we try to convince guests to do a bonfire BBQ at our sand bar (formerly known as 1 Palm Island or snake island) NE of the resort. The last 3 trips, we have had good surf and when confronted with either surfing or drinking beers while watching a sunset, the guests chose surfing. But after a couple slow days, a sacrifice was in order and after a long night of drinking beers by the fire, we woke up to fun Rifles. With the tides good all day, guests pretty much picked their window to surf, while others just surfed all day! With the swell picking up the next couple days, it should be interesting to see what each morning brings…. – Justis