Indo Summer with Lauren Taaffe

On a stunning white sand beach, with the hazy silhouette of a colossal volcano on a neighboring island blending into the clear blue sea, I overheard someone scolding their boyfriend for being grumpy on holiday. "Look where we are! People would pay a fortune to be here. How can you be in a bad mood in this paradise?!" she exclaimed, waving her hands at the beautiful, serene, and incredibly flat bay. Her boyfriend sighed, "I'd be in a much better mood if it was 6 feet and pumping." I couldn't help but smile; while I agreed with his girlfriend, I also knew exactly how he felt.

Surfing is a good lesson in letting go. Letting go of expectations, egos, and control. There are so many variables that need to line up in order to “score,” and most of them are out of your hands. You need to be at the right place at the right time. You need swell, wind, and tide to line up too. Even if you have all that, there’s often a crowd of surfers better than you (if you are an overly polite Canadian surfer, like me) dominating the peak, making it hard to snatch one even from the discarded pile of waves. And when you finally get your turn, you better not mess it up. The ocean is a good teacher in patience and humility.

In my last couple weeks of a four month long surf trip, I found myself getting skunked. Badly. I was battling crowds, broke a board, got food poisoning (twice), earned myself a couple stitches, experienced a flat spell, and when there were waves, I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I so desperately wanted to score one last time, but Indonesia was seemingly telling me that it was time to go. 

I keep an unnecessarily detailed journal on these trips. When most of your days consist of simply surfing, eating, and sleeping, they tend to all meld into one sandy, salty, sunburnt blur. But in reality, there are so many little in-between moments that happen each day when you’re in a foreign place that would otherwise never happen at home. I delight in documenting these obscure events and interactions, crafting lengthy journal entries that at the very least, aim to amuse whichever crew I find myself with, read aloud over nasi campur as the day winds down.

I guess it’s also an attempt in preserving this special time of exploration. Capturing all of the random little details that come to mind—like the ideal swell direction for a wave I may never return to or the price of a bundle of rambutans at the local market—makes my journal feel sort of like an acoustic blog. And when I am back home trying to navigate real life, I can time travel back in my own brain to that moment through my written memories: moments of scoring, or moments of skunking, to remind myself that it’s never as bad as it seems.

The Indonesian surf trip is a well-worn path in the surfing world, documented and publicized extensively. For me, it was the grand finale of a sabbatical year, a four-month sojourn to surf, travel, and escape the confines of land-locked life in interior British Columbia. Before arriving, I delved into some Google searches trying to decipher where to go and when. But instead of feeling prepared and armed with information, the plethora of options and spot descriptions including terms like “unforgiving,” “thick-lipped,” and “shallow razor-sharp reef” left me both overwhelmed and intimidated.

At the end of the day, if those epic, uncrowded waves promised by the middle-aged Southern Californian who spilt the beans after a few too many Bintangs elude you, you’ll likely have a tale (and lengthy journal entry) to show for it. And that’s really what it’s all about. Flipping back through journal entries during the last weeks of my trip was a reminder that surfing is not purely about scoring waves, but also the connections and experiences forged along the journey. I had been so fortunate to meet so many individuals, both locals and fellow travelers, who share the same passion for the ocean, chasing waves, and exploration. Our shared experiences are what truly defined the adventure.