The coast of Nias: A paradise for surfers

By Ibnu Basori

NIAS (JP): The International Surfing Championship which ended on July 23 turned the quiet coast near Sorake on Nias into a fiesta.

The competition, with the officious name Indonesia Open-Nias Pro, was actually a round of the Australian Championships. So the majority of the 58 participants came from Australia. Three surfers from Bali, one from Hawaii and a few from Nias rounded out the competition.

Jye Gofton, 21, from Australia came away with the first prize of A$ 3,000 and was followed by Chad Ryan, Josh Parmateer and Matt Griggs. Total prize money amounted to A$ 15,000 for men and A$ 5,000 for women.

Nias is part of a chain of international surfing competitions along with Uluwatu in Bali and the Plengkung coast at Grajagan, East Java. Grajagan is popularly known as G-land.

The height of a wave is not the most important criterion in surfing. Rather, how far the wave travels with out breaking is crucial. The waves on the Sorake coast are of the "left wave" type which curve over a long distance while forming a fan. A "left wave" means "right hand" for surfers with their back to the coast line. The swell which gives birth to the waves comes from the Indian Ocean and is held up by a reef, yielding a reef break. It is very close from the key hole to the wave.

"Another advantage of Sorake is that its waves are stable and nearly perfect, not affected by the tides. The distance from one wave to another is very small," said Clement H.J. Gultom, an expert in Sorake and the executive officer of the surfing competition for the past two years.

Gultom and Mark Flint of Australia are the founders of the Nias Island Association of Surfers (NIAS) club and own the Boraspati Stone Age Surfing travel agency which channels surfers to Sorake.

The almost perfect waves along the Sorake coast were discovered in the early 1970s by wandering hippy surfers looking for an alternative to Kuta, Bali which was getting crowded. Top world surfers like Thornton Fallander, Reevso, Warren Dugga visited Nias. They were surprised which was important information to the surfing media.

However, the burgeoning of Nias as a surfing site cannot be separated from the merits of Dick Hole and Jack McCoy who took the surfing world by storm by their video production entitled Riders on the Storm with its shooting in Nias and a number of places in East Indonesia. This was the beginning of Nias as an ideal surfing venue. Surfing magazines have since named it "The Best Right Hand", "The Most Notorious Right Hand Reef Break in the World" and "The Best Ten Waves in the World."

The coming of surfers has encouraged local youths to learn to surf. Local Sanali Bu'ulolo became the best surfer in Nias and Revolusioner Wau once competed in Brazil. They had trouble surfing not so perfect waves though.

"The lesson learnt from the defeats of Sanali and Wau was that they practiced at perfect reef breaks only. They experienced difficulties when they had to carry out difficult maneuvers at less good reef breaks and beach breaks, while other competitors were used to exercising under such conditions," said Gultom.

Enthusiastic children plunge in to the sea along the beach at Nias every time they feel the desire to practice surfing.

The three brothers Wau competed against the experts from Australia and Hawaii at the Indonesian championships even though they are still very young. Jounius Wau is only ten.

Lodgings

Both surfers and spectators base themselves in Sorake because it is near the beach and lodgings are cheap. There is nothing better for the surfers than to stay close to the perfect waves they have been chasing.

The close relationship between Sorake inhabitants and the surfers, who sometimes stay for a couple of months, has not led to exploitation. Lodgings cost between Rp 5,000 and Rp 15,000. These prices suit the surfers who have no desire to stay at a near-by resort with a minimum rate of US$ 80 per night.

The surfers are solely interested in the waves.

"They resemble Reef Break waves which are of a constant nature, they are almost perfect. For surfers in other countries who only have to make do with inconstant Beach Break waves, it would be a pleasure to surf in Sorake," Gultom said.

Gultom has taken young surfers from Nias, like Sanali Bu'ulolo and Revolusioner Wau, to compete on the Gold Coast in Australia and in Barra da Tijuca, Brazil.

The Prinsendam, a tourist liner, anchored for the first time in Teluk Dalam, 12 kilometers away from Sorake, in 1974. Two groups disembarked.

A group of sightseers headed for Bawomataluo, a traditional 200-year-old hill town featuring south Nias architecture and megalithic stones. The surfers, of course, raced to Sorake.

Teluk Dalam was then the best way of getting to the most attractive region of Nias island. The regional capital, Gunungsitoli, is about 120 kilometers away with little means of overland transportation. In 1990, a car trip to this region from the capital took 6 hours. From the airport of Binaka, about 12 kilometers from Gunungsitoli, it now takes 3 hours to get to Teluk Dalam.

Access to Nias has improved. There are now two flights a day from Medan on a 18-seat Cassa 100 plane. Locals and tourists with a taste for adventure, or no money, take a ferry from Sibolga. The trip from Sibolga to Gunungsitoli takes 8 hours and from Sibolga to Teluk Dalam takes 12 hours.

A long way to go, but it's worth it.

Ibnu Basori is a reporter of Jakarta Jakarta magazine. This article was written exclusively for The Jakarta Post.