Perfect or Perfectly Deadly? Sumatra 2014

 

A jungle trek leads to a hidden cove
    
   
With a bit of gumption, a daypack of provisions, and a liberal application of bug repellent, the intrepid surf explorer eager to impersonate Indiana Jones can enter the jungle, struggle through suffocating humidity, and emerge from muddy paths to find a place where the constraints of ordinary experience not only diminish but give way to paradise visions.  One may find, for example, a deserted cove where untrodden sand edges an emerald sea and balmy breezes carry an echo of the dreamtime.  There, an apparently perfect left spins beyond the lagoon, a fantasy wave, its shoreward surge like the frolic of a winged horse in a meadow of the gods.
Sumatran secret. . .Photo:  S. Jacques Stratton  
 When I first saw the wave it seemed surreal, as though the jungle trek had somehow warped the fabric of space-time and confronted me with a scene from the primordial Earth.  Under the sheen of sweat and bug repellent coating my face, I felt my expression contort into that wide-eyed, open-mouthed variety that signals bewilderment.  During the run of swell over the prior week, charter yacht crowds battled for waves half as good.  To find a dream wave going off under the radar screen on a day deemed flat  seemed beyond strange.  Additionally, the irony had a personal dimension that turned more cruel with each successive wave that spun down the reef.  I didn't have a board. . .
Why would I?  Enlisted me on a jungle trek to photograph monkeys, I planned my equipment needs    Mystery monkey. . .Photo: S. Jacques Stratton

 

accordingly--daypack, bottled water, camera accessories, and hiking boots.  The idea that I should add my surf gear to the equipment list, on the rare chance that I might sumble across a dream wave in The Land that Time Forgot, simply never occurred to me. Well, that was about to change. . .one nagging detail--a consolation of sorts--kept me from kicking the sand in frustration and calling myself an idiot.  Lacking reference point, I had no sense of the wave height.  The camera's zoom lens offered little clarification.  I couln't tell if the ruler-edged peelers that came into focus represented knee-high reef scrapers or double-overhead bombs with board snapping potentia..  I couldn't tell, but I knew I had to find out. . . 
With the call of the sea in my anxious expression, I absolved myself of further wildlife photography duties and made a beeline for camp, contemplating the sense of foolishness that would no doubt afflict me if, after slogging back and forth through the jungle, I returned board-in-hand only to find the vision of fantasy surf shattered by different tide and wind conditions.  I'd heard tales of Indonesian reefs that, once in a Blue Moon, turned on as tidal forces pushed water over special coral contours, and I wondered if this spot might fit that profile.  My mind a-whirl with such speculations, I lost an appreciation for potential trail hazards, including a brown snake whose presence I discerned just as my sandaled feet stepped inches from its flicking tongue.
Back at the camp, a profusion of empty beer bottles and the lethargic sprawl of my fellow guests indicated I'd have difficulty generating interest in a formally organized surf expedition.  Specifically, I hoped to drum up a skiff and a surf guide, and thus avoid returning on foot to the surf.  Unfortunately, the camp crew had all embarked on errands, and the most interest I could generate in my fellow campers was a bemused "good on ya, mate!" from an Australian, who clearly regarded my report of perfect surf on the other side of the island as a madman's raving. 
After another jungle jaunt that depleted a good portion of the calories I needed for surfing, I returned to the hidden cove. With a cackle of glee I mocked the unbelievers back at camp.  "I'm out there!" I intoned, as the surf gods unfurled another set for my private appreciation.    "I'm out there!. . .In truth, I had no sense of the wave height.

The paddle-out went easily enough--at first.  Between the beach and the fringing reef, a waist-deep lagoon, its clear waters a sanctuary for colorful fish, offered an inviting paddling path.  Yet here I encountered a surprise indication that I'd stumbled upon the primordial edge, where expected forms acquire unexpected dimension.  The lagoon proved wider than I initially judged--much wider.  When I finally reached the shallows of the fringing reef and stood on the coral, I looked back to see palm trees as twigs on a distant beach.  The surprise width of the lagoon foreshadowed the surprise width of the reef, whose sharp corrugations I now traversed carefully, treading my booties through a minefield of urchins, anemones, fire coral, and other toxic terrors.  Eventually, I reached the point where the bubbly aftermath of the oncoming waves surged against my shins, and there discovered another surprise:  what from the beach looked like playful splashes of foam resolved, upon closer inspection, into hissing whitewater cauldrons powerful enough to blast me off my feet.  "Holy s--t!" I muttered to myself.  "It's bigger than I thought."  Rather than pause to reassess the situation, I let my enthusiasm override my caution and took advantage of a lull to paddled hurriedly seaward, angling toward the take-off area.  Lured fully into the surf zone, I finally understood why I had such difficulty determining wave height from the beach.  Off the headland, a dark shadow formed in the sea, after which a great suction of water dredged off the shallows, leaving the reef almost dry.  Where shadow and suction met, a lip pitched forward, impacting below sea level just inches from the exposed coral.  Invisible from the beach, the full scope of this dynamic did not reveal itself until witnessed from a waterfront seat.  Perfect, or perfectly deadly?  That lip is impacting below sea level, inches from  exposed coral.  Photo: S. Jacques Stratton
Driven more by a sense of showmanship than a real interest in riding the dredging demons, I waited on the periphery, hoping an amiable shoulder would offer an entry point that didn't entail a vision of my body impaled upon coral heads.  That game soon ended when I padded for, backed out of, and nearly got sucked over the falls on a wave I initially judged as head high but which morphed into a 10' face.  Deciding to make discretion the better part of valor, I made my way back to the beach.     It's out there, if you want it--the jungle path, the hidden cove, the perfect (and perhaps perfectly deadly) wave.  You won't know until you go.  My advice:  bring a helmet, and don't surf alone.