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Every Girl's Guide: the Mentawais Real life travel tales by real life surfer girls by Alison Berkley February 12, 2004 - "We were in Sumatra, about to embark on our 12-hour boat ride to the Mentawais and I saw that the only people coming off the boats were really good pros -- guys like Conan Hayes, Jeremy Sommerville, Pat O'Connell and Brad Gerlach," says Ashley Carney, a 24-year-old surfer from Cardiff, California. "I was like, 'Oh, my god, what am I getting myself into?' Obviously the waves are quality. They are pro-guy quality, and that's a lot to step up to. I was scared." Carney and her three best SoCal surf buddies, Erin Edwards, Christina Zeitler and Nicole Falco decided to test their limits on a boat trip to the Mentawais, a surefire hallmark in every surfer's travel repertoire. They're all dedicated surfers, standouts at their local breaks, semi-sponsored girls who have dabbled in contests at one time or another and quickly realized their priorities were about surfing, not winning contests. That's why Carney and her crew decided that traveling would be a better way to push themselves. "Indo, and especially the Mentwais are a major destination for all surfers. Every surfer wants to be able to say, 'Yeah I've been to Indo,'" Carney says. "It's the ultimate trip that every surfer wants to take." Getting There Unless you're from Australia, just getting to the Mentawais is half the battle. "We were in transit for at least two-and-a-half days," Carney says. They flew from LAX to Jakarta, Indonesia, via Taipei, Taiwan, but not without incident. "Christina was so sick we almost had to take her to the hospital in Taipei. She couldn't hold anything down. Nicole had some medicine in her bag, so they had to take all the luggage off the plane to get it." Sufficiently drugged, they went on to Jakarta and spent the night in an airport hotel. "We didn't really want to explore Jakarta because traffic is so bad. We were told it would take two hours just to get there from the airport. We just wanted to get to the islands," Carney says. The next day, they flew from Jakarta to Sumatra, but had to spend the night in Sumatra because of a hurricane. "We were a little worried. We were like, 'Are we going to even get to the Mentawais?" Then there's the 12-hour journey by boat from Sumatra. "We were all seasick. It came over all of us slowly, and then everyone went down. Nobody was speaking to each other. Everyone was just laying on their back, staring up at the sky." On the morning of day four, they paddled out for their first session in the Mentawais. The Boat The girls traveled on the Neptune, an 84-foot ocean liner arranged through their travel agent, the Surf Travel Company. "There were two bedrooms with four bunks in each room, but it was too claustrophobic for Erin Edwards and me, so we just slept in the living quarters upstairs with the crew. "Travel by boat is what makes the Mentawais such an amazing experience," Carney says. "It gives you a chance to relax. You can't go out, you can't party. You can either surf or not surf. So you have a lot of time to reflect, and write, and read. Things that are nice to be forced to do. You sit outside all these beautiful islands. It's nice to be away from people, surrounded by uninhabited land and palm trees." The Surf "It took me a few days to figure out what to do with perfection," Carney says. "At first, I didn't even know what to do on waves like that. In California, you'll do what you have to do on a wave just to keep going. These waves have so much power and are so big and perfect that you can do what you want to do. There's more room for artistic expression." Perfection comes at a cost. "I got hurt in my first 10 minutes surfing in the Mentawais. I pulled into a barrel and I got too low and the lip hit me on my back and knocked my knee into my eye and split it open. And then I got dragged across the reef," Carney says. "It's so powerful, it's a whole different level." "Even though it was scary sometimes, it was amazing because it was just us girls out there. We were totally on our own if something happened. But we still really pushed each other, cheered each other into waves. It was so cool seeing Christina and Erin drop into these huge faces. I was scared, but I was really proud." The Dangers "It's really shallow. We all hit reef. Christina had these huge tiger scratches down her back and Nicole scratched her back really bad, too. It's really shallow and the reef is super sharp. Your cuts don't heal until you get home because you're in the water every day. We just used lime juice on our cuts, which hurt like hell, but kept it from getting infected. Booties are a must in Indonesia," says Carney. Malaria was another major issue. "The malaria pills we took made me really nutty. I had really messed up dreams. I didn't like the way they made me feel at all," Carney says. "It's strange being on the boat and taking Dramamine for seasickness and malaria pills. All that stuff put together can make you feel really weird." Keep in mind it's remote in a way that's hard for Westerners to understand. "There are no doctors or hospitals or anything like that if you get hurt," Carney says. "After that first day, I had a mild concussion, so I was more careful than I might be at home." Giardia and food poisoning are another concern, so it's a good idea to have your doctor prescribe antibiotics and antidiarrheal to take with you on the trip. Carney and Zeitler both picked up some sort of intestinal parasite that plagued them for weeks, even after they returned home. "It wiped us both our for at least two months, we were useless. But it started developing as soon as we got to the Mentawais." Carney says they both felt more drained than usual, but attributed it to all the travel. "I would highly recommend bringing food, like PowerBars or something, you know is going to be OK on your system." The Lineup "It was actually really crowded some days because there were a lot of boats that would turn out to the same spot. There were all these gnarly guys out there in the middle of the ocean. We couldn't believe it. All the boats were always trying to outrun each other to all the other spots so you could get it to yourself." Carney says they did get lucky a few times and even had a break called Telescopes to themselves for an entire day. "It was worth it going all the way down there just for that one day at Telescopes," she says. "Just me and my closest friends, it was absolutely perfect." The Culture "The crew were all Muslim, and they definitely view women differently. When we would dance around in our bikinis or go wild, they would totally freak out," Carney says. "They had never had women on their boat before. They had no idea how to deal with us. The Muslim culture does not allow women to express themselves. They have to stay covered, can't even show their faces and here we are dancing around in bikinis. But they definitely got a taste of our culture and were able to see women in a different way, which was totally cool. It was probably a good thing for them to see that women have their own ideas and their own ways of expressing themselves and that they can be fun." The Food "The food is good; it's just really different. They had these huge crabs the size of my head." On a boat trip, it's easy because you don't have to make the kinds of choices you do when you're traveling on your own because everything is prepared for you. Carney says they had a terrible time in Bali and a lot of the food made them sick, but that they were OK during their boat trip. "Everything was pretty fresh. We ate lots of noodle dishes, fish and rice." The Bottom Line "The Mentawais are the ultimate. The waves are perfect. Surfers can deal with anything as long as you get your waves. The Mentawais are that plus a great experience. I loved traveling with the girls. It's just so empowering. Just to be around so many girls who are powerful and independent and doing their own thing. We didn't have to impress each other or show off. We all got along really well and had a great time -- that was our ultimate goal, and we definitely accomplished that." Been anywhere lately? Tell us about it in an e-mail. [Editor's note: This is the first in a series of firsthand accounts from female surfers about their experiences in different parts of the world. The aim of these segments is to strip away the gloss of magazine stories and pro poise and tell it like it really is, the essence of surf travel for those of us who don't get to globe trot every single day. Our ultimate goal is to make it that much easier to put yourself in their shoes -- or even better, follow in their footsteps.] |
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