These two young surfers are part of the 1st generation of surfers at HT’s in the remote island chain, the Mentawai islands, Indonesia way back in the early 2000’s. All of their surfing hardware had been sourced via the surfers on boat charters. Except for perhaps their shorts?!
All three locations we visited on that overland trip had a small crew of surfers just like these guys.
It took 20 odd years of surf tourism for that 1st generation of surfers to emerge, as up until then the vast majority of surf tourism was via boat charter and for good reason.
The presence of cerebral malaria on land and the flexibility that boats offered to motor between the multiple world class surf spots in this region had kept interaction between surfers and locals to a minimum.
Our ability to stay on land rested in the hands of a capable expat, who spoke enough Indonesian to get us into home-stays, and had done enough reading to confidently advice us, that the cocktail of medication he had created, would make us as attractive to mosquitos as vegetarians were to t-bone steak! Well that and a good mosquito net!
So how did these young surfers obtain their surf hardware? Rumours at that time said that local village kids used to wait behind the palm trees on the shoreline to steal boards, broken or otherwise when they washed up on shore at HT’s were this shot was taken.
To repair the broken boards, kids would paddle out in canoes to the charter boats and charge the surfers a village resin tax. Such were the challenges faced by these early surf pioneers.
If you inspect the surfboards in the image closely, you can see that their boards have been sawn and resined together. It’s possible there may be four different surfboard halves in the image modified to form two complete boards.
Necessity seems the guiding principle here, rather than function. Unless these young pioneers know something that we have yet to discover! Too funny.
Anyway, I don’t know how much of what I was told was fact or fiction, and I am sure there were numbers of boards generously donated too, but for a surf community to develop, access to surf hardware is critical. It’s a supply that needs to be continuous, considering the fragility of surf hardware and the harsh environment they are used in.
Without surfboards, leg-ropes, fins, surf communities cannot grow.
Unfortunately access to surf hardware across the globe is not a level playing field.
In developed world economies, surf hardware is in abundance along with the affluence to afford it.
However the story in emerging world economies is very different, as was the case for these to young groms who represent the extreme end of the spectrum. What little hardware that does exist in emerging world economies is usually imported and priced for tourists. Way beyond what most locals can afford.
Domestic surf industries in emerging world economies are encouraging to see but they are are either not to the same standard, or are developed and priced for visiting tourists or the sponsored elite local surfer.
So for surf communities in emerging world economies to begin and even sustain themselves they rely significantly on the generous donations of visiting surfers, the recycling of unwanted gear and repair of broken surf hardware.
We at “the Light by the Sea” have been informed of surf communities in South Asia that are chasing surf hardware. Normally as we flew to visit people overseas we would also drop off surf hardware, but due to covid that is currently not possible.
So post it will have to be!
Whilst post is good for small items such as leg ropes, surf & soft-boards are not exactly letter box friendly!
If anyone has any information on shipping surfboards via air/sea cargo at a reasonable price then that would be appreciated. Thanks.