22 August 2013, Simeulue Island, Aceh-Indonesia: The first-ever professional surf contest on beautiful Simeulue Island got underway today with a colorful and fascinating opening ceremony, followed by the completion of the first two rounds of the 6-star ASC sanctioned Aceh International Surfing Championship 2013.
The opening ceremony began at just after 10 am, after the surfers had a chance to catch a few warm up waves on the Nancala Beach peak, a dream wave that breaks both right and left and provides the opportunity for virtually every type of surfing maneuver imaginable, including big turns, airs, and barrels.
Feryza Farhan, the spokesperson for the Aceh Extreme Sports Championships, the event organizer, welcomed the participants and officials and thanked them all for coming, then explained the purpose of the event and its schedule. She also explained why there weren’t more international participants at the event, citing the limited capacity of the local airline that services the island and the lengthy time it takes to get there using ground and sea transportation.
Her speech was followed by a speech from Drs. Amirudin MSI, the Head of the Ministry of Tourism, who thanked the surfers that had come from Bali and Banda Aceh here in Indonesia, and also the Australian, South African and American participants, also acknowledging the logistically difficulties and promising to help address them in the future. He explained how Simeulue has a lot of potential as a tourism and surfing destination, and asked that all the participants help him to spread the word when they went back to their homes.
Next up was Vice Regent Hastul Edyar of Simeuleu, who promised to continue to support surfing and this surfing event in the future, making it a yearly event, and stated that there was a plan in the works to have larger capacity airplanes flying directly into Simeuleu from the nearby city of Medan.
At the end of his speech, Vice Regent Edyar officially opened the Aceh International Surfing Championship 2013 by pounding the Simeulue drum, and the releases a bunch of balloons into the air. The audience was then treated to several local dances, including the crowd favorite where several men appeared to be stabbing themselves with knives. The knives never penetrated the skin, and after several attempts the blades just bent, and the bent blades brought over to the government officials for inspection.
Then it was on to Round 1, with the 24 surfers organized into 8 three-man heats for the non-elimination round, where the winner of the heat advanced directly into Round 3 and the second and third place surfers were giving another chance to advance by competing in the man-on-man Round 2.
The waves were a consistent 2-4 feet for the majority of the day, allowing for the competitors to get plenty of action, which ended just as the sun was setting in the western sky. Nabbing the highest single-wave score of the day was Bali’s Garut Widiarta, who was rewarded with an 8.00 score (out of a possible 10) for a massive frontside air. “That was such a fun heat,” said Widiarta. “And this is such a great place!” he added. “After the 48 hour journey we took from Bali, it was so nice to come to a place that is beautiful and has such great waves. It makes you forget about all the traveling…thank god,” he said laughing.
A group of 12 ASC surfers from Bali took four flights, a one-night stay in Banda Aceh, a bus ride and then an overnight ferry to come to Simeulue to participate in the contest. They were joined by surfers from Banda Aceh, one Simeulue local, an Australian, an American, and one South African.
American Wyatt Daily from California didn’t plan on joining the competition, but found himself advancing into Round 3 of competition after making his Round 2 heat. “I just came along for the ride with Lorca (the ASC commentator) as I’d never been to Simeulue and it sounded like a fun trip just to check the place out. I’ve never even been in a surf comp before, so this is one of many firsts for me on this trip. I’m super happy I came,” he said.
Round 3 is scheduled to begin tomorrow morning, with the ASC’s top ranked surfers including Dede Suryana, Tipi Jabrik, Darmayasa, Mustofa Jeksen, Raditya Rondi, and others competing for valuable championship points and first place money of $1,500 out of the total $5,000 prize purse, so expect the action to be hot and heavy here at Nancala Beach!
The Aceh International Surfing Championship 2013 is part of the Visit Aceh 2013 program, which is sponsored/supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, the Government of Aceh, the Regional Government of Simeulue. Additional sponsors include Bank BRI, Garuda Indonesia, Rampagoe Surf Team, Bahussalam Travel Aceh, Antariksa Aceh Clothing, Singkray Koffie, Uye Coffee, +62 Clothing, T21 Surf Team, Hecanation Clothing, and media support from the Atjeh Post.
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