The Real Kandui Surf Resort Mentawai Islands
Nov 24th surf report.
We’ve been doing our off season projects out here on the island, surfing little 4 Bobs, weathering the rain, and clinging to any hope of waves that the forecasts might show. There has been a swell on the maps for over a week now. When I saw it and the wind forecasts, I made plans. “Bankvaults Saturday afternoon”. Now usually making any long range calls like that is the kiss of death. But not this time! We motored off to Bankvaults after lunch. Justice has went back to the states to spend the holidays with his friends and family. That was lucky for me since we surely would have been fighting over the steering wheel of the boat with the winds being variable, going light southeast (good for his beloved Kandui) and light northeast (good for my second love, Bankvaults). As it was, I didn’t even look over my shoulder at Kandui and motored straight to Bankvaults! Conditions were perfect when we rolled up. A set came in at a few feet overhead, barreling all the way down the reef and the forecast was for the swell to increase all afternoon. We looked around. It was the middle of the afternoon, the sun was shining, no charter boats, no resort boats, no nobody for miles! I threw the camera to our kitchen staff, today boat driver and photographer, Basi, and scrambled for my wax. The only other person in the boat was one of our landscaping crew who surfs 4 Bobs and just about nothing else, but he grabbed his board and kept me company. He tried to get some smaller ones and got frustrated at the way Bankvaults shifts around. I told him, “it’s hard to be in the right place at the right time out here but all you need is one and you will be smiling the rest of the day!” Not long after that, the set of the day came through. The wind was blowing northeast at the time and it was SO clean! I took the first wave and it was a good one. I’ll send Anthony the entire sequence and see what he wants to post. You can see by the claim that I haven’t caught a real wave in a while! Basi gave up on me for a bit in the barrel, but hell, he’s usually cutting vegetables in the kitchen so he’s drinking Bintang on me anyway. There were 4 more BETTER waves behind this one! Seriously! I was screaming at the sight, perfect double overhead, empty barrels peeling down the reef. Our landscaping guy was in perfect position for one of them and I was yelling at him to go! He took a couple of alligator paddles, but then yanked back that chippy 6’2″ that served him so well at 4 Bobs. Your not in Kansas anymore buddy! The winds went back to southeast and we never saw another set like that. But it only takes one!
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