The Banyak Islands are a group of 99 islands between Similue and Nias off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia’s Aceh Province.
They are home to some of the finest waves in the world and if you are living on a boat for 10 days with 11 of your best mates and a top-end guide who knows every “local” whim of wind, tide and swell and who is not afraid to motor one, two or three hours to the next break, it is fair to say you are surfing in paradise.
This trip has been two years in the planning, saving, preparation and execution.
Kudos to key organisers Paul Proctor and Mike Cowen for pulling 12 buddies together and launching the trip of a lifetime in waves that were unimaginably good.
The buddies included Jethro Johnson, Steve Cook, Mike Cowen, Paul Proctor, Paul Cat Stephen, Doug Copeland, Trevor Orylski, Tristan Johnson, Warren Rieger, Harold Goddard, Dave van Staden and Troy Benn.
Some of this crew live overseas these days but the common thread is being from or ex-Ku Gompo City.
It is a good thing that the trip was two years in the planning because it did cost a bomb but, golly, the lads did score waves of a lifetime.
Those who know Paul Proctor from years ago might recall him being a regular recipient of the social attaché award at East London events.
That is, that guy who was seen to socialise, have more fun, meet more people and seem to enjoy himself more than anybody else.
Nothing has changed. Paul was the last man to bed every night, drank more Bin Tang than anybody else, was the first man out of bed every morning and did some of the most radical surfing of the entire crew.
This, above and beyond being one of the key organisers of the adventure.
The man runs on a different octane from the rest of us lesser mortals.
Mike Cowen told me a story of hovering on the shoulder of a beast of a wave about to take off and fearful of his own welfare, being stunned to catch a glimpse in his periphery of Steve Cook taking off deeper in the bowl of the same wave on his stand-up paddle board.
Steve does not back down from a challenge. Mike held back to let Steve get the wave which came over like a glass axe and broke Steve’s SUP with a mighty blow.
Steve escaped the wipeout, without injury. A blessing for the whole crew, only relatively minor cuts, scratches and “tattoos” were suffered by the whole team.
Only one surfer on a neighbouring boat needed a needle and thread to stitch a wound from the resident travelling surfing doctor Cook.
Doug Copeland had a small cut in his toe which became very inflamed and his entire foot swelled up, but the good fortune of having a doctor on board and the right antibiotics had him back in the water in no time.
As I have said before, I am old enough to enjoy some of my surfing vicariously now, and I have been sad in empathy recently to see Jethro Johnson with a back and knee injury out of the water for nearly two years.
What a joy it is to see him with a knee brace, careful fitness and training, and well-selected and carefully dispensed painkillers, having the tube ride of his life over a shallow section of reef called “the surgeon’s table” (because a wipeout has those sort of consequences) and riding the wave out clean.
I feel his joy of being back in the water.
Standing next to Paul Cat Stephen at good Nahoon Reef this morning with 18.5°C local water and 14.5°C air temperature, he declined to paddle out.
“When the mouse is full, the corn tastes bitter.”
Trips like this one in the Banyaks are hard to recover from.
Steve Cook sums the adventure up. “Islands have breaks on all sides. This removes the limitation of a single land-based location in different swell and wind directions.
“Add the dimension of the vagaries of coral reefs and the mobility of a live-aboard boat, and you have the perfect environment to find and catch waves of all shapes, sizes and characters.
“Surfing is a most graceful contact sport. Operating so far from any medical resource heightens the odds of even a minor mistake readjusting one’s immediate future.”
So what was the perfect wave?
“The one that burnt itself into retained memory, possibly because you knew all this was beyond your control.
“To have shared this as a community was an immense privilege.”
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