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Dear Duncan Scott
I wanted to start this letter by telling you: you are a delightful wanker. But that would be a fickle and demeaning way of telling others about our amazing journey to a rich and exciting other part of the planet. Then I thought about the notion of crossing -- but that seemed too American and they are pretty much in the trenches right now. And we are South Africans.
STRANGE MENTAL CONNECTIONS. MIND DIARY.
Then I hit on "transition" -- and islands, about rethinking, rewriting and reenacting islands in our collective mind. Robben Island, the Mentawai islands; transition from isolation and imprisonment to adventure to freedom.
And on to: Mentawai madness: transforming from greybeard to grommethood in one charged moment, in 12 arc-eye livid, vivid, peaceful days. Wednesday 26 September - Sunday, 7 October, 2001. One, two, three ... er, what day is it?
BIN BARRELED RECENTLY?
While world consciousness teetered on the brink of war, out there on the periphery, in Muslim territory, on the most remote Asian island, it was comforting to know that everyone knew you were from Nelson Mandela-land. Ironic, because we all grew up in such a racist, aggressive regimented community. Freedom of the sea, freedom of expression, freedom from self-imposed sadism. Freedom from ... surfers? Heavy apartheid waves bro. Transition. Let's fly. And then ...
IT'S OVER 4.38am, Grahamstown, Thursday, October 10, 2001.
Only a few hours after our journey to the Mentawais peaked. Hollow Trees/The Office/Lance's Rights. Got you etched into my ... bum. Weird thoughts tumble in the washing-machine green depths, gasping for sunshine, down again. Wham! Surgeon's table, to live and die, pain and pleasure. Indo power. A new experience only now starting to settle Chill Distil Coral cuts heal. The grey, cloudy curtain is drawn, but the mind picks though bright, bone-white shells of memory.
SUCKER FOR CIRRUS The scene opens amid dazzling sunlight, high blue skies splayed with silver blond cirrus, grumpy blotches of nimbus and flat, darkly shaded shapes of the islands appear. As we chug forward, they colour up, green with ... hey, check out those real coconut trees. Klap me Pete! It's the dream!
DRIVE PROPERLY
After eight months of waiting, saving, training, waiting -- and finally the pathetic spectacle of middle-class credit-card bowl begging in my bank manager's office -- after all that, our first glimpse of the dream is: ominous.
A surf charter leans forlornly on the razor's tinkling turquoise back. Wrecked recently, mumbles the skipper.
No, Duncan, the Mentawais, as you so decadently and a bit heartlessly wrote in a recent 'Zag piece, are not "dead" to the surf world, perhaps "deadly" is a better description. But hey, although you too were on the Indies Explorer when you made your paw marks, I'm told you never went there.
ED IS GREAT
Our group of 15-odd (and I stress odd) guest-punters were a fine human mix, although the main strand was definitely South African pavement special. The surfing group comprised about eight core surfers and Gideon "Golla" Malherbe, plus a motley crew of grommets, (author included) kooks (author included for his enthusiasm and uncoolness -- once contemptuously referred to by the skipper, in the HTs line-up, as: "The rock climber") and boogers. Especially one Ed 'Allah-is-Great' Wes, a respected Jo'burg cameraman whose holy mission on this trip seemed to be to ride just one wave a day so as to get horrendously crucified while we pleaded "Don't go Ed!" like a bunch of girls (*- see reference below).
THE JOL We all travelled four-or-more thousand kilometres from home to to those islands to experience a little bit of heaven and hell. Few had false expectations; we'd all paid the price and we were in it for THE JOL. It made for a stunning on-board atmosphere -- if that ship sank in a Sumatran black-eye (the big guy forbid) some of us would still be grinning from ear-to-ear. They'd have to use a koevoet to crowbar them off.
PULSE OF WAR The bigger issue on our mind, however was looming war -- but the only sign we saw of this was in Singapore's airport city plus nervous American surfers, one of whom joked that he would pass himself off as "Australian" if challenged. Singapore, by the way, is another country north of Indonesia.
However, I recall a collective silence -- a portent of stormy things to come -- as we chundered past that wreck and glimpsed our first bit of heaven.
DEEP GLITTER-FLECKED blue. Indian Ocean drawing up in green pulsing lines, white eyebrows sweeping, winking over sweet hissing, mouths. White, palm-fronded beaches and the rod-shitting rumble of Indo barrels mechanically unloading on coral jaws.
Something like that. Ag, Pete jus klap me one more time ek se! Is it Nipusi? They all call it "Pussies", at Playgrounds, an intimate scene in the surf dream. Not an illusion, but only part of a wider world for surf explorers. And this was a small swell. Macho morons aside, I think most of us were secretly glad about this.
PRIDE COMES BEFORE A SQUALL One or two piss-willy, air-conditioned, dull first-world, metal- fiberglass floaters were in their parking bays off the break as we sailed up in our truly indigenous, hugely spacious, gracious, Indonesian pinisi-inspired, customised floating traditional village. We parked a ways off. Breeking? Pride? Firkin yeah! And then, like migrating wildebeest, we chaaaaaarged! Bank Vaults first. Empty. (Duncan, wake up!)
ONE HAND KLAPPING Blue whaleback lines welling up, perfectly-framed missiles exploding on a fast and furious reef. My second wave gave me my first Indo barrel, crystal-white, spinning, picking up such incredible speed ... then that lip hit so fast and hard, klapped me silly did Indo. Pussies was pure frothy fun. So good that when I begged fellow shipmate, the Kiwi Gus Gawith, for a wave all he said was: "Remember the last Test" and went. Gus is a serious "yappy clappy" (A "Japie" klapper, his way of coping with an overdose of South African Y-frontiersmen and women.
Later in the afternoon Pete and I and a worldly-wise Kiwi surfer- missionary from a group called Surf Aid, I think, (these guys are doing good stuff -- the dream has a serious social underside) surfed Bank Vaults on our own. I had two or three screamers so good to me that I still can't quite stop playing them in my head.
SKIPPER'S SEWING LESSONS Within minutes of our happy mob hitting the water that day, 35-year- old British surf school owner Chris Rea was facing a stitching on the captain's surgical table (otherwise known as our dinner table or, in my mind, Great Place of Ama-Bullshit, sushi, and sweetly malevolent lie dice). "How do you want it? I can give you one painful shot and the pain will go away quickly, or four smaller painful shots and the pain will go away not-so quickly," was skipper Gideon's Malherbe's typically deadpan comment as he brandished the needle above the wide-eyed Chris's kop. But ey, always to look in the skipper eye for that bemused twinkle. I see from the video footage that the ultimate hardman's hands are gentle, ya, even caring. In her three years of wild, crazy, exotic, grinding, heaving, humping, divine development, the Indies Explorer (KLM Laut Indies) has given Gideon strange new skills. Stitching, is one of them, learned from two doctors who spent months on board.
ROCKING QUEEN Hey, I gotta tell you more about this rocking queen of the Mentawais. Every cashed-up American I ever spoke to during the three days out of 12 that we encountered any other surfers in the line-up, (Duncan, wake up!) raved about how blessed we were to be on her. Why? Because she's such a truly awesome creation. Think Mentawais, one of the last truly remote Indo glory surf theatres, as harsh as the devil's hard-on for feral surf travellers, and think, life is too short for bals like me. She is as much a part of the Indo-Mentawai dream as anything else.
GOLLY, HE'S GREAT Here's my plug, but 'strue as nyannies, the Indies crew --- led by husband and wife duo Gideon and his spunky non-tennis playing skipperette Chantal, quietly put on one of the greatest surf shows on earth. (Remember that album Duncan? Nah, you're not retro enough.) They are the talking heads on a body united that links 42-year-old Indo skipper Sulaiman Pantouw and his three crew -- tender driver Sinaga Khairul, young deckhands Boby and Sofian -- plus cool-in-the- saddle shit-hot fisherman and first mate Greg Miles from Hermanus and spunky chef Jo Mouland from London. I also detected the quiet hands-on efforts of the Explorer's innovative ship's engineer, the off-beat, argument-loving Kiwi hardman Gus who was largely responsible for putting in the Explorer's potent 400hp CJ Cummings diesel engine, and huge 3000-litre fuel and waters tanks which means she can travel from Padang to PE on one tank. Gooi in the back-up work of other partners like Nic Hofmeyr and you have a weird but wonderful brew. Seffrican surfers, it's probably the most passionate, hands-on, caring, daring, mental klomp-pomp you will ever have in Indo. My mind kept wandering to my two daughters and other surfer parents: it seemed to me that shelling out the shekels to put the laaities on board the Explorer would be giving them the adventure of a lifetime. Surely this is the ultimate, healthy alternative to rave drugs and brand clobber?
SURF SLAVES The Malherbes and their crew provide an experience which is right out there, on the edge, but at the same time safe as houses. The boat was custom-built in about 1998 by ancient Indo hands with Gideon living right there ensuring that it was customised from origin for the simple purpose of surfing, diving and unrestrained ballas- bakking. Apparently the Indo boat builders could not quite get their head around the fact that where the cargo hold was supposed to be, they were being asked to build cabins. It took some effort for Gideon to explain that we -- the punters (my term, not his -- they call us guests) -- were to be the dollar-paying surf slave cargo! The result is a ship as strong as a buffel. Four years down the line she is comfortably rigged with a range of mod-cons -- surf videos, a sharp sound system, your own rustic, but well-appointed two-person cabin. She is a home-from-home, one of the most exotic B&Bs you'll ever experience. No longer do guests have to line up at all hours and in all kinds of weather for a tug-of-war with the anchor -- Gus has found a cheap but smart Chinese engine to do the work now. Beats falling on your gat ... Nor do guests have to use ropes to manipulate the broken rudder -- but I'm told those South African spearfishermen loved it!) I dream of sending my daughters on a trip with her, but that is in the future and she's charting now. This year she successfully ran 12 of her total of 30 charters with about 70 percent of the guests being South African. A few years down the line, nobody, not the skipper or crew, not the partners, not punters like me and others described by you -- Duncan -- as "cashed-up" surfers (we lagged at called ourselves 'crashed-up' and 'washed-up' ballies) can predict what will happen. She ended her season one charter short after some American's pulled out, but she's firing on all cylinders and will be charting again from February. But nothing this good lasts forever. I also enjoy the fact that she is operated by a steely-eyed hardman, who, when shown some waves, turns into a mad-dog hellman who this year alone broke 15 boards in Mentawai barrels. I saw him giving them away to locals at Padang who will repair them and ride or sell them. I heard from others how 250 to 450 dollar-a-day charters can cram surfers into dormitories and shunt their cargo mindlessly to breaks regardless of conditions. A real bummer.
ALL ABOARD But this is no disco; life on board the Explorer is a little different to what they tell you on the pamphlet: that stuff's way boring. Spike of wavescape.co.za described it as rustic and gritty -- fair comment, but it doesn't talk about rocking and rolling, when your bod is going up and down many metres while you lie there trying to sleep in your crisp sheets. I found it kief! Mother's arms stuff. And hot? The smallest amount of thrutching around or dithering over some lid or dollar induced an explosion of sweat so one had to stay schweet at all times -- relax, open the hatch, switch on the fan, swing open the porthole -- SPLOOSH -- enjoy a porthole enema at 5am! It's cool -- everything will dry, going with the flow is the only way.
GOLLY, HE'S GROSS! Our trip worked like this: the skipper sniffs the breeze, checks the charts, raps to the Indo crew and contemplates. He sailor-walks up to the shady table on the aftdeck where we, the paying rabble, the great unwashed, loll around guzzling, gobbling, gassing, perving surf and fashion magazines and nodding off. He is in standard charter outfit -- shirtless, nut-brown, barefoot, chic spikey-styled haircut, (courtesy of Chantal's on-board salon), and there's a hint of butt-crack hanging unselfconsciously from his baggies. He stares and says: "So. We are going south. OK." It's not a question. He leaves. Here's another pearly gem dropped onto the Explorer's now- fibreglassed deck. On arrival at smoking Lance's Lefts, with, ag, 10 mellow dudes in the water and three or so boats at anchor, he says: "You guys (us) must get out there, pull in, and take control." On pulling back -- much more of a perplexing problem to him than crowds: "You guys have travelled half-way around the world to be here? You must just pull in! We'll scrape you off the reef if we have to."
GIDEON'S INDO SURF RULES On our first windless night in the smelly, wonderful Third World anarchy town of Padang, the skipper gave a public speech. A rivetting thing because although he is a "sociable guy" who loves to shoot the bull over a beer, public oration is not quite his forte. As a journo bored to death with lavish, insincere public exhortations, the skipper's speech was refreshing for its brutal honesty. It's a highlight of the trip. He occasionally stutters, refuses to raise his voice above the crowd, but he shoots straight from the lip. Take care when pissing over the side while we are travelling at night -- if you go overboard you will likely die. "When you are in the surf, be courteous and respectful." Ha! I'd heard whisperings about this! True to rumour, on the first glorious day at Bank Vaults, he immediately paddled out on the inside of his drooling guests and sat there, way out. It took me a few days to twig on to "Gideon's Indo surf rules". In the main, he expects you to snake him. He also commands you to commit those gonies, bugger the bottom turn, drive high, get into the barrel and "pump" like hell. He genuinely enjoys satisfied customers -- the barrelled-to-oblivion types who gibber all the way back to Padang. That to him is job satisfaction. Weird shit in the Mentawais but you might dig it, like I did.
BACKHAND IS BEAUTIFUL I rode a few like this, including my first ever, eye-popping, booming, sucking backhand tube at Lance's with the skipper shouting from the foam behind me: "Go for the barrel!". It was an incredible experience for an east coast "natural" surfer. But first expect to get smashed many times. Think of it as acclimatisation. But when it happens, it's beautiful. On my first successful go, I emerged from the foam to hear an American hugging the tailend of the line-up shouting: "You were sooo far back, man!" Thanks dude, that was 100 percent ego stuff to someone who only started surfing again a few months before in preparation for the trip. It made all that wretched retching and rasping gasping at the end of the rides all the more worthwhile. Shoo, that backhand feeling -- so strange to me -- of taking off on a seamlessly spinning face, the corral racing past down there, leering in hyper-reality and telling yourself 'f.... it! Just doen it', and letting the stick plunge down that curvaceous line -- and pomp like hell. But, really it's all a blur right now.
BACK TO FRONT Day two: a magical moonlit night anchored with three or four surf spots dotted around the gently rocking boat. My China Pete Britz and I were the first over the side at dawn doing something brand new -- yet again. We paddled into a break from behind, with no idea of what to expect after taking off. Backdoor man. Little Lagundri, 3-4 foot, pure glass, golden glowing skies, friendly chuckling reef, time to put the stick against the lip. Phew! Jus, a, klap me there on the ear again, Pete! SIES! SHAME Later a little snorkeling -- sad fact, much of the corral is a wasteland after a global warming happening some months ago, add a bit of dynamite fishing to that. Sometimes if feels as though everybody from hi-tech to lo-tech, is doing their best to destroy the planet. Tens of brilliantly coloured and shaped tropical fish swim in sharp outline against the dead reef, plucking at dispirit tufts of seaweed. Sies, shame! But Ed Wes says he saw healthy coral at a 20m wide island nearby -- so there's hope.
RAW MAW We caught about three or four fish a day which were served up as dinner or presented as a sundowner delicacy. Sushi-like raw fish in the Mentawais taste just like biltong. Mmmmmmore. I took one of the last rides in the Explorer's "tender", a fibreglass boat with two outboards. We zipped off to Nokandui, scene of this year's OP Pro competition where the world's best had their apparently brattish, spoiled behaviour thrashed out of them leaving only real men and woman standing. It was described as the greatest heats of competitive surfing ever. I know firsthand now, because the Indies Explorer was a key part of that adventure and we saw the videos which Gideon produces along with witty sub-titles like "What day is it?". Heart-attack material: I was pleased that the spot was trickling through at a foot or two. So no-could-do bru. Being a punter on the Explorer, with your every surfing need reasonably met, means you can sleep easy at night.
MOSSIE THOUGHTS A couple of us slept out in shorts on the foredeck. We slapped on mosquito repellent but, truth is, put a Grahamstown and a Mentawai mossie in the ring, and the Gatstad mossie would take it in one. I think I heard the faintest whine once or twice on the boat, and bro, in Grahamstown, its torra torra time when the mossie squadrons arrive. There was lots of talk about Larium versus Doxy pills, but quite a few people weren't taking any pills -- is the malaria risk during a two-week jol in the islands not perhaps a bit of First World neurosis? Zen surfing in the Third World, Robin? Those bombs have scary side-effects and on-boat talk of malaria control was more about taking a handful of the drugs at the onset of the disease to klap it, rather than endless heavy pill-popping with ugly side-effects. It was said the risk of being bitten by a malaria-carrying mossie while on the boat was quite low, and I suspect those who say you should take the pills are doing this as a form of moral insurance against the remote chance that shit happens. (Incidentally, I did read the 'Zag piece about the malaria-hit feral who thought he'd have to put a nappy on when he flew back to London.) It's your call. Going feral is of course a different matter and protection is probably a must.
TENDER MOMENTS: THE FULL STORY Night three: we woke from our divine, breeze-cooled sleep as the first drops of the Sumatran black eye struck. Heavy wind followed. From the comfort of my double bunk below (Pete, officially, thank's for taking the smaller bunk!) I heard the patter of rain and feet. Then a few heavy steps. The Cummings kicked into life and the winch started cranking up the anchor chain. Amid the vibrations, clanking and all the other by-now normal ship noises, I might have heard the occasional shout. Of course, the ship see-sawed, but I was now a husha-by baby and at a primordial level was starting to smaak it big time! Not for a moment in my slumbers did I imagine that drama was taking place. In the morning, the glum faces of the skipper and crew told of how the tender sank with two outboard engines attached. The storm slammed so hard that she started dragging her anchor. At the same time the tender moored alongside was taking in water from the chop and torrential rain. As she filled, she began bashing the side of the Explorer. Faced with the need to up anchor and move the main ship to safety -- and trying to refloat the tender, the crew had no option but to let the tender sink. Nic Hofmeyr watched as the little boat disappeared, snapping her thick mooring rope like string. Facing potent rip currents and muddy waters there was no chance of diving to find her. The tender had used up its "ninth life". and a piece of the Explorer's life was gone. And that is the sad story of the tender. Not quite, because that morning we anchored off an "unknown left" which was drawing in the southerly swell and going off it's nooley at 4-6 with 8-foot wide-swingers. Deep green lines -- some of the straightest we would see -- rolled deeply for a long way. As usual, Duncan, an empty line-up. I ended my sessions thrashed and blinded, returning to the ship with my rash vest strapped around my head where I was given drops by Chantal and told to go and lie in the dark of my cabin with suspected sun-burnt arc-eyes. A warning to you next bunch of punters. (Sun glasses? Hats? Don't surf at midday? Whatever works for you.) Tender Moments -- that's what we called the spot -- much like the way Ed and Nic Hofmeyr named Rudigan -- a play on the words "Rudder gone" drummed up as the crew fixed ropes to the Explorer's broken rudder while others ripped at that spot. So there, everybody. Exotic name, my arse.
Y-FRONT EXPORTS From there it was two ripping days at Lance's Lefts - ideal size, sometimes sunny, sometimes iron grey. Then onto HTs, and by the time we got south to The Hole we were sat, wrecked, destroyed, surfed out, reduced to limping around Lighthouse Island and hydrating. I got the feeling from the skipper that this form of weariness was only expected on the last day -- bunch of kooks. A day spent visiting a small ramshackle town at some port while hiding from the storms was brilliant. Bright, clean shops between stinky, dirty gutters on the waterfront. We ate local cuisine with our right hand, the crew and partners interpreting. Goods and services on offer included shirts, cheap and funky slip- slops, a "wartel" -- sattelite public phone -- which connected me to home for five or ten minutes at a cost of R35. Technology and poverty, enterprise and poverty, hustle and bustle, vibey, right out on the underdeveloped margin. These people do not give up. No hand-out, entitlement crap here. They klap the pace, Fanon, Biko, Marley would have approved, I mused. From my island of ignorance, I picked up that Mentawai islanders find Western surfers odd and amusing. "Why do you come here?" is the often- asked question. They, it would seem, are trying to go elsewhere -- perhaps to the 'bright lights. While I was rolling around trying to regain my land legs, the Explorer's Indo skipper Sulaiman appeared on the streets. He'd donned his coolest flower-print shirt provided to the crew by Chantal, plus smart pants and a neat cap. He smiled, waved and chatted to shop-keepers, clearly proud of his position, a man of status here, skipper of the smart Indonesian surf boat Indies Explorer anchored just there.
FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT - SURF STYLE It struck me that Gideon and his partners have made an unusual investment out here. Yes, they have their own self-interest -- surf, a good time, a good business -- but they have provided four classy jobs for Indonesians and a whole bunch of subsidiary services back in Padang, -- think of food and drink, repairs, laundry, it's a hell of a list to restock and maintain a boat like her. Quite a few of the partners who responded to that funny little letter Gideon wrote to surf mags four years ago "for investors in a surf boat" have learned to speak the local language and chat away incomprehensibly to us Afro-anglophiles. I can't speak Xhosa. Transition. Most of those partners, especially the South Africans, have managed to create a slice of life in another country for themselves -- a great temporary escape from the stifling rut that home can sometimes symbolise. While Gideon is clearly the owner-operator, Sulaiman and his Indo crew are clearly hands-on in charge of running of the vessel -- day and night. They eat, sleep and live among the guests. We lived among Indonesians. Integration? Gideon and partners chose to use indigenous skills, materials and ancient local wisdom to build their vessel. We punters shopped locally, we tipped generously at the end of the trip. Money and goodwill flow between cultures, nations. During a recent international surf event, the Indonesian government boat chose proudly to anchor next to the Explorer, who flies the Indo flag. Transition, trade, investment in hard cash, blood, sweat and tears, I liked the elements. We are often too self-conscious or self- effacing to say it (American style), but I'll tune you: I'm proud of these tough new South Africans. They have created an absorbing new alternative life out there. Long live the Indies Explorer! Long live the spirit of transition! (Oh yes, Duncan, our stats for the trip were that we saw other surfers on three days of our 12 in the islands; we surfed 10 of those 12 days; on two separate days we were the only boat anchored off pumping HTs and we surfed 11 different spots -- which is unusually low, according to Gideon. But he's spoiled -- he lives there. And we never took any porn mags on board Duncan. We saved our fantasies for real women back home!)
WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING! If you're still with me, it would be churlish not to tell you why I chose this scribbling style.
It goes back to that last morning at HTs. We'd made one of the most bouncy island crossings where I sat mesmerised watching the milk jug slide from one side of the breakfast counter to the other trying to predict the precise moment when it would finally bloop over (that was until the skipper unceremoniously and in passing on his way to the wheelhouse, dumped it all the sink.) Our speed had been a pathetic one knot. The wind howled, the rain hammered, skipper Sulaiman's stubby toes were crimped over his footrest below the wheel. Even he whooped, Indo-style, when we made the lee of the next island. (Don't ask me their names, there were simply ... islands.) Then, in just-as-classic Indo-style, it all stopped and there was HTs at 4-6 foot, offshore-brushed perfection. The sight of these stunning world treasures throwing green roomfuls of water has inspired the world's best surfers and surf photographers, but for the ordinary mortal like me, the gut turned to jelly. Some sets were swinging wide -- where the sensible in our group chose to sit. But the skipper had no time for "shoulder-hopping" and Pete, TJ, Pat, Darryn and I were subconsciously frog-marched into the barrel-of- death zone. Pete paddled all wrong. Don't go Pete, but Pete's already snapped-and- repaired board floats in the lip, Pete is gone. Pete is a crawfish ... My turn. They said I snorted like a buffalo (how unflattering) pulverising my way into it and promptly dropped into space. But, hey, you know like when you find yourself still on like a (fat) scone ek se? Pulled up high into this enormous, raging cavern -- "The pearly room", according to the skipper. I even heard his voice out there somewhere, a yelling diminishing dot. "Pump! Pump!" It's unbelievable! I'm a 41-year-old fart, its been 31 years after I first rode my first wave, I'm now married with two children, two bonds, three HP agreements, private school bills, a small business to run and a load of other monkeys on my back, and here I am in this awesome, incredible perfect Indonesian barrel. (God, I hope my bank manager isn't reading this!) "Gonna make it! Gonna ..." BANG! -- the world falls, it's all over -- suck air! -- over -- suck foam! over and and ... WHAM! SLAM! Arse-first onto the surgeon's table. Spluttering, hacking, and hurting, my back lightly scratched and my bum soon-to-be an exotic-purple, I climbed onto my board and drifted into the channel. Demolished, farrrked, finito, ecstatic. I paddled towards the chortling Sinaga in his rubber duck, and heard that voice: "So. Where do you think you are going..."
OUR
TRIP
LIST: Sulaiman Pantouw, 42; chortling tender operator Sinaga Khairul, 40; brave skipperette Chantal Malherbe; owner-operator Gideon Malherbe, 34; kneelo and first mate from Hermanus Greg Miles, 30; partner and Jo'burg cameraman Nic Hofmeyr, Cornwall-based Aussie surf school operator Pat Sweeney, 47; Darryn Coney, 23-year-old shaper and son of Country Rhythm's Lyle Coney (now in Australia -thanks for the boards all those years ago!); Dirk "Sleek Sheik" Hartford; Anna Hartford; TJ "The man from Knysna" Duncan -- 'twas a jol bro!; Rhodes University Ichthyology head Dr Pete "The charger" Britz, (research se gat!); Eddie Wes, 48 and koooking!; Colin Kuit, 25, a former PE bra now teaching surfing at guest Chris Rea's surf school in Cornwall; Johan "Calla" Callitz, the coolest rasta-loving Cape Town stock broker; crew Boby Syofian, English chef and surfer Jo Mouland; Sydney-based Kiwi Explorer partner Gus Gawith, Cornwall surfshop owner Nick 'Cuppa-tay' Ulczak, 48.
REFERENCES: * "Bunch of girls!", was shouted repeatedly and
drunkenly by the late SA rocker James Phillips at a bunch of unselfconsciously macho headbangers from Bloemfontein who were performing at Rustlers Valley in the mid-1990s. * Zen Surfing in the Third World - Robin Auld CD
STILL TO COME: * Who is this Golla guy? Interview with herr Kapitan met picture; * The motley crew: wot the punters had to say; * Some grotty on-board photos, and totally uncool surf photos -- the way we all take them from the boat with shitty little cameras and manky lenses, developed in those in-one-hour-we-will-fuck-up your- dream-holiday pics shops.
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