BG3 Travel blog: Part VI - The Boat Trip page 1

After a couple weeks in Bali I hopped on a plane and flew to the large northern Sumatra city of Medan. There I met the 5 other surfers who would be on the boat with me. Fortunately they seemed like nice guys - I was just hoping for no whiners. We hopped on another small plane and flew to the west coast of Sumatra.

These kids were playing soccer on this field which is right at the end of the runway in central western Sumatra. When a plane was about to takeoff or land, a siren would go off and all the kids would run away until it was safe to come back.

"Airplane!!!!!!!!!!!!" "Clear! Game On!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Walking from the plane to the terminal.

At the airport we loaded into 2 SUV's driven by a couple guys hired by our boat captain, and they drove us the 40 miles to the port city. This drive was one of the highlights of the trip. It was through an area where very few western people go. When we got out of the car in one village, people gathered around to look at us and wonder what we were doing there.

A couple kids came up to say hi to us when we stopped in a town, and I gave them some stickers for their trouble.

The drive itself was ridiculous. Having been raised by a dad whose been known to pull some crazy driving maneuvers, I am not easily scared in cars. But our driver had me close to terrified. The road is about 3/4ths of a lane in each direction (see photo), so that when passing oncoming traffic, you had to put your wheels on the very edge of the pavement. No problem, except there were frequently slow moving motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, and various animals along the side of the road. This didn't slow us down though. The protocol was for the driver to hold down the horn and people in front of us got out of the way. About 3 different times we came so close to crashing that we all flinched inside the car. We all looked at each other, pupils dilated, shook our heads and laughed nervously. None of us wanted to be the one that showed any fear, so we all kept our mouths shut. It was also fun watching the other half of our caravan, in the car in front of us, pull off many of the same crazy driving maneuvers.

This is a typical roadside scene from the drive. Looks like a quiet residential street right? Well, I guess it is, but our drivers plowed through at 50mph sending children and animals scattering.

Eventually we arrived in one piece at the harbor where we met our boat captain, a classic Aussie guy named Steve. Steve built the boat from scratch all by himself, and sailed it from Australia to Sumatra. Being a catamaran, it was a great boat to live on due to the total lack of rolling motion. Also on the boat was Steve's Thai girlfriend Anne (incredible cook!), and two deckhands named Armon and Lubis who were born on a couple of small islands off the Sumatran coast.

Walking out the dock to get on the Bohemian, the boat that would be our home, transportation, and restaurant for the next 10 days.

Pulling out of port to start our trip.

This is Steve's dog, Buster, a 4 month old Jack Russel Terrier. Buster was one of the highlights of the trip. He had a hilarious personality and swam like a fish. I've never seen a dog spend so much time in the water.

The first evening we came upon this beautiful island where we dropped anchor and ate dinner. The island had a tall central hill with incredibly dense jungle, and a waterfall cascading all the way down one side. Sunset was a beautiful time of day because the low sun caused the trees to have an orange glow. The island was supposedly uninhabited, but we saw a campfire on the beach - probably fishermen who were spending a couple days away from home. While Anne was finishing up dinner we went for a swim, with Buster of course, and tried to climb up the waterfall. It was smooth rock covered in moss so it was impossible to climb the vertical bottom part, but it would have been soooooo fun to slide down:

Buster checking out the waterfall, wishing Steve would hurry up and drop anchor so he could jump in the water.

A closeup of the very top of the waterfall emerging from the jungle. The source was probably a spring, though I suppose there could have been a huge lake in the jungle somewhere.

We knew we were in for an awesome trip when our first dinner was so good we were fighting over the last piece of chicken. Anne was such a good cook and made the most amazing dinners every night, never repeating a dish once (except sashimi, but that was just appetizers!). I still don't know how they fit all the food we ate on that boat.

Steve drove through the night and we all woke up at dawn eager to see what awaited us. It took a couple more hours to reach the first break, but we saw a perfect, playful, mushy but good size left. I was the first one out and made sure to catch the first wave of the trip. It was absolute paradise: dead glassy, 78 degree water, fat swells rolling in, clear water, and easy fun waves. More on the surf in the next post.

Here is Lubis chasing down Buster who tried to follow us out to the lineup. He always wanted to be where the action was.

Whenever we cruised from one surf spot to another, we always put the fishing lines out for some trawling. I've never been much of a fisherman, but the fishing was another highlight of the trip. We caught enough big fish to have fresh sashimi almost every day:

The first fish we caught: I forget the name but it was delicious, which surprised me given its striking color.

Here I am proudly showing off a 30+ pound yellow tail tuna I reeled in. At this point in the trip, this was the biggest fish we had caught yet (it was soon to be dwarfed by others). I couldn't believe how hard it was to reel it in - it fought me really hard!

A delicious plate of sashimi - this is the same fish I'm holding above.

Above and below: Armon showing off a massive Spanish Mackerel reeled in by one of the surfers, Ben. This fish made the best tasting sashimi I've ever had. Ben had moral issues with catching a fish and killing it and eating it (though he wasn't a vegetarian) but we didn't stop harassing him until he ate some. He admitted he liked it - VICTORY!

One day we reeled in a 5 foot barracuda, after we had already caught two nice yellow tail, which are way better meat. We happened to be pulling up to a bay with a little village on the beach, so we decided to give the barracuda to a family in the village. It was great seeing the reaction on the little boy's face when someone on our boat lifted up the fish and he saw how big it was. He was impressed! He also thought it was hilarious that Buster was on the boat with us:

Above: Buster guarding his catch. Below: handing the barracuda to the family.

Walking around on an island with a world class left on its northern tip. Look closely and you'll see Buster on the beach.

One of the most amazing things was seeing how the two massive earthquakes (Boxing Day '04 and March '05) lifted an entire plate off the earth. The entire plate was lifted as much as 10 feet higher in places, so that it looked like the ocean was 10 feet lower than it always had been. In this photo (taken on an expedition to retrieve a surfboard broken at the wave seen above) you can see all the coral that died because it is no longer submerged. These dead coral reefs were everywhere, and every time you saw one you knew it meant the ocean used to be 10 feet higher until the earthquakes.