The Tomo Diaries.......

This is the first instalment of a series of chapters in my wide and colourfull adventures around the globe chasing Surf.

June 2006. Southern Sumatra Indonesia.

After arriving in Jakarta in East Java i met up with the hard core indo surf crew which included Californias Travis Potter, Brian Conoly,Brett Swartz, Micah Byrne, Brandon Tipton and Ben Knight -and an array of film crew ready to capture the trails and tribulations of a discovery misson, deep in The jungle areas of far south Sumartra, Home of some of the deadliest indonesian wildlife, malaria hot-zone and apparentlty some untouched indo gold in the form of empty barrels.

After like 20 hours sqweezed into a beamo with no suspention driving on some of the heaviest moutain roads in the world, we arrived in some god forsaken arsehole of the earth city where i imagine barely a whiteman has set foot. First mission was to find a fishing boat with a crew willing and capable of a surf expedition into the untouched wild coast of the area, after a day of searching and haggling with local fishermen, we found our crew and our ship for a reasonble price, a raty chicken boat none the less with not even enough deck space to sleep the entire crew. filled with Chickens, a goat , 5000 packets of mi-goreng and 20 case of Anker beer, which would be gleefuly drunken warm.

We set off on our voyage up the coast. about 12hrs steam we reach a tranquil bay on the inside of a small peninsular where we anrchored for the night. The next morning we waxed our boards and paddled our boards ashore and set off into the jungle to cross the peninsular in search of waves on the other side. No one expected to find what was waiting on the otherside, a beach break of all things and not any ordinary beach break, but a fully fledged sumatran Puerto Escondido style peaks in the double overhead size. To be continued.........