THE LUCKIEST SURFERS IN THE WORLD
If you have US$5000 and are in Indonesia with a month to spare you should absolutely get to Kandui Resort ASAP
Words: Tim Baker.
When I am old and incontinent, dribbling and sipping my meals through a straw and my faltering memory turns itself to the most pleasant episodes of my life, I will happily drift off to the several trips I have been fortunate enough to enjoy to Kandui Resort.
I say this with no vested interest or financial incentive, but because I have just watched the above video and dissolved into tears of emotion, a potent mix of nostalgia and jealousy. While many of us remain in lockdown or unable to travel internationally, a few smart, lucky or devious surfers have managed to ensconce themselves at Kandui Resort to enjoy back to back swells in its wave-rich playground with no crowds.
I don’t know Nic Von Rupp or Nate Behl but they are currently my new heroes. Their tube riding in this clip from Kandui Left is next level, supremely confident and at ease in one of the most challenging waves in Indonesia hundreds of miles from medical aid.
When the history of this pandemic madness is written, their ought to be a chapter on those wise surfers who managed to find a way to pursue their passions in relative isolation, where lockdowns and masks are unnecessary and the glorious liberation of soaring through gaping tunnels is still on offer.
Kandui Resort, like most tourism enterprises, have done it tough through COVID but manager All Day Ray Willcoxen and his team at Kandui have managed to keep the doors open, their staff employed and a blessed handful of surfers tubed out of their brains. And they are offering some outrageous specials to provide extra incentive for any surfers elsewhere in Indo to jump on a plane, boat or bus, or some combination thereof, and get their arses to what they justifiably call “the best surfing location on earth”.
For just under US$5000, you could enjoy 30 days at Kandui enjoying any one of dozens of breaks a short longboat ride from the resort, three generous meals a day, comfortable lodgings, wi-fi, air-conditioning, hot water, $1 Bintangs and free beers on their floating deck next to Four Bobs every arvo and enough magical surfing memories to last a lifetime. That’s US$165 a day instead of the standard US$295.
“The surf has been firing and we just had the best run of Kandui Left for 2021. Hideaways, Ebay and Beng Beng were all good as they get and insanely light crowds. The swell of the year is plowing through the Mentawais as we speak and the winds have shifted to the North and the rights are back on schedule for August,” I was helpfully informed in a recent Kandui email newsletter.
This pandemic is no joke and there have been too many tragic tales to wrap our heads around, and Indonesia itself is in the grip of a brutal spike in COVID cases.
But amid the gloom it’s at least nice to know that some surfers have had the good sense to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. Tourism is one way Indonesia and its people will recover post-pandemic and keeping the doors open and the lights on at Kandui is one small way of lending some support to that recovery.
If you’re in Indo and can get there, do it. If you’re not and you can’t why not forward book a trip with the optimistic outlooks that we’ll all be travelling and surfing again in our favourite destinations?
And go get the jab.
To find out more visit the Kandui Resort website.