Southern
Indian Ocean
MARCH-MAY
>>> Perfection is elusive in the world of waves. For all the flawless, machine-like imagery we see in print, the perfect wave is often just a camera trick—a split-second moment of brilliance when wind, swell, and bottom contour come together as one. But real-time perfection does happen. And it happens most often in the Indian Ocean.
The Southern Indian Ocean is the most consistent potent-storm producer in the world. Fueled by supercharged Atlantic systems rounding Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and enhanced by the notorious “Roaring Forties” winds, the Indian Ocean swell-machine runs almost without fail from March to October. As it runs, it sends waves everywhere from Reunion Island in the southwest to the Andaman Islands in the northeast a week later.
The bulk of wave energy focuses on West Australia and the Indonesian Archipelago. West Australia has no shortage of waves, but it’s similar to other regions close to a storm track: often large, unruly, and full of random, imperfect reefs and rocky ledges that are generally best appreciated from a safe distance. Just a short list of some of the named waves in the area is enough to make one nervous: Cyclops, The Box, The Guillotine, Tombstones.
Indonesia, on the other hand, seems less random and raw and more a product of intelligent design. Of the more than seventeen thousand islands in Indonesia, hundreds if not thousands hold flawless surf. As soon as swells pass the northwest tip of Australia and approach the Timor Sea, it’s as if they get an extreme makeover: cleaned, trimmed, dressed, and lined up in neat little rows.
Part of the explanation is scientific. Indonesia is ideally situated to receive the fruits of the most powerful storms in the world with the largest surface area for generating swell (also known as fetch). It is located a perfect distance from these storms—about three thousand miles—to receive the bulk of the energy without the messy side effects of a closer system. It is also home to the deepest trench in the Indian Ocean, the Java Trench, which funnels and focuses wandering swell toward its welcoming reefs.
There is also a mystical side to Indonesia’s wave activity. Before the first Western surfers planted roots in the islands and made ocean play a daily ritual, most Indonesians feared or avoided the ocean. In Balinese mythology, the ocean is even associated with the Underworld, where the “demon spirits” reside. This might help explain some of the more mysterious wave anomalies in these waters—anomalies that still aren’t understood by swell-forecasting experts.
Stories abound in these islands of days when conditions defied all swell maps: when the ocean suddenly turned on for five minutes—or an hour—for no apparent reason. Or when just a slight shift in the water level transformed the waves from waist-high crumblers to double-overhead freight trains in a matter of minutes. Much of this is tidal, but it’s the complex combination of water’s ebb and flow between this network of islands—mixed with swell, wind, current, and those endless rows of flawless reefs—that creates so many surprises. Or maybe spirits really do reside here.
To truly understand and appreciate the ocean in harmony, all one needs to witness is a solid swell with light offshore winds at a spot like Desert Point in Lombok or One Palm off Java. This is where it all makes sense. Where perfection is in the blueprints.
>>> Indonesia may be the model of perfection, but that’s increasingly being challenged with the shift of the earth’s tectonic plates. In the last decade, we’ve seen dozens of temblors wreak havoc and rework the topography. The most extreme example of this was in 2005, when an 8.6 jolt caused a several-foot permanent rise in the reefs off Sumatra. This movement destroyed some breaks and improved others. In some cases, it created new waves altogether. Lagundri Bay in Nias, Sumatra, is one world-class wave that is even better post-earthquake. Once requiring a larger swell to break, it’s now two feet shallower—just enough to transform a common swell into something unforgettable.
>>> In recent years, the definition of the term rideable wave has expanded. Double-black-diamonds like this one in Southwest Australia had long been considered too shallow, distorted, and dangerous to be messed with. But that all changed when the world’s most intrepid waveriders proved they could be survived. They even came up with a term for them, slabs. Slabs can best be described as waves that break over an abrupt, shallow shelf. A swell will move quickly out of deep water and—like a speeding car hitting a low wall—collapse over the obstacle. The result is a surprise package of freaky wave behavior. Some use terms like triple-suck, ledge, and mutant to describe the myriad ways a wave can break over a shallow, imperfect reef. Others just call it crazy.
>>> It’s interesting how little effect humans’ foibles have on waves. This one- hundred-fifteen-foot, two-hundred-ton Taiwanese fishing boat dry-docked a few years ago under suspect circumstances at Padang Padang, one of Bali’s premier surf breaks. There were initial efforts to remove the Ho Tsai Fa. But when those failed and the swells kept pouring through unhindered, it simply became part of the scenery—until someone soaked it with kerosene a few weeks later and lit it up with a Molotov cocktail. The barbecued ship was eventually cut into pieces and removed. All that remains today is the occasional piece of scrap metal and memories of the time when the best wave in Bali ignored its uninvited guest.
