Sumbawa, what a place

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Today we leave for sumbawa. Sumbawa is 2 islands over, we would have to take a ferry from bali to lombock then lombok to sumbawa. We Checked ot of our hotel around 8:30 PM and headed over to Jesses Hotel. Jesse and Arice had already picked up the van, so we loaded up our stuff and were quite quickly on our way to the first ferry. As I've probably mentioned in previous travel blogs the roads here are pretty crazy, most indoesians can fit at least double the traffic into a lane of what is normal in canada. Alot of times there would be 3 or 4 vehicles taking up space on a 2 lane road. Luckily Jesse is pretty comfy driving here, cause if i was driving travel time would probably be doubled. We arrived at the ferry at around 10:00, and apparently just made the one that was about to leave. pretty hilarious system, the ferry only had one exit/entrance, so everyone pulls up to the dock and then has to reverse onto the ferry.Therefore, beingthe last one on means we would be the first one off, which is sweet. After cramming onto the ferry we shimmied out of the door (because of being so crammed on there) and headed to the upper deck, Jesse started negotiating us some mattresses for the ferry ride, Andy and I were confused cause we thought the ferry ride would be about 2 hous or something, then Jesse told us it would be more like 6. so we grabed some mattresses for like 20,000 Rp and headed to the upper deck with them. We ended up going right to the front of the shp on the platform in front of the Captain's area, so that was prettycool, and itwas nice and cool for the 6 hour ride. We slept for most of the trip and woke up just in time to head down and load up into the van. So about 10 minutes before even docking everybody has already started their engines, so the car area gets a little stuffy, but finally they opened the floodgates and our van along with all the scooters that had been filling upany gap between larger vehicles poured out. it was aound 4:00 AM when we arived on lobock, so still pitch black. I don't remember how long the drive was accross lombock, because I kept nodding off. The strange thing was it was 4:30 in the morning and there were kids jogging on the side of the road, we couldn't figure it out, tons of 'em all over lombok, very strange. By the time we reached the ferry dock to Sumbawa the sun had come up and it was another hot sunny day. We grabbed some fruit from the fruit stands at the docks while we waited for a ferry to arrive, and Jesse turned us on to these fruits called Mangges that have like a hard shelland gooey kinda sweet and sour inside that is pretty amazing! This ferry was only about an hour and a half, so no mattresses, we just went up to the top, which i think might have been a staff area, and found some cmfy chairs to try and sleep on for the ride. Beautiful scenery on the ride over, tons of little islands and once docking we could see the water was alot greener than the mucky brownish water at Kuta (beachbreak). We headed accross sumbawa and Jesse filled us in that we were gonna stay at a place his buddy, Kyle owns called Amigos, which is right on the beach in front of a break called scar reef.... a little intimidating, totally read about that break in my indonesia wavefinder and it talks about how the reef is only a couple feet deep at some tides and is named for people having crazy scars from getting dragged accross it. We arrived after another pobably hour and a half of driving through crazy small villages, and passng some people it looked like they had never seen white people before. We arrived at "Amigo's Beach Bungalows" which right as arriving we could see was on a beautiful setting of beach and palm trees. Everyone that worked there was stoked tom see Jesse, right away you could tell that this was a good crew of guys that Jesse had known for a while. There was 4 main guys that worked there, Iang, Nanang, Randy and Leehin (no Idea if that spelling is correct, haha. When we got there Leehin wa just coming in from surfing and we met everyone, super friendly guys! After settlng in, Leehin asked if we wanted a coconut and proceeded to scale a palm tree, grab us one and dice it open with a machete, pretty sweet! We drank what we could of the milk and then ate the meat, pretty good, but kinda sickly if you eat tons. After unpacing our stuff we went down to the beach which is all of 2 mins away from our bungalow. Wow, what an amazing beach, crystal clear bluish green water and white sand. We went for a quick swim to cool off after the 12 hours of travel, the water was amazing, so clear, you could actually see under water. The surf was pretty flat, so not much too see when looking out at the 2 reef breaks about a km out. After the swim we went back to our bungalow to relax and were greeted by 2 recently hung hammocks, so we grabbed our books and had a good relax in the hammocks, man, this is the life! After that it started getting around lunch time so we headed down to the resturaunt and had some excellent mie goreng (fried noodles and chicken),delicious! afterwards we basically just laid around in hammocks and got settled in until enjoying a beautiful sunset, of which we had many!

The next day (may 7) we woke up pretty early, Jesse had plnned to grab a boat over to some land he's looking at buying. So I woke up around 7:00 and chilled in the hammock for a little til Jesse and arice woke up and we grabbed some delicious chocolate pancakes for breakfast. After that we found out the boat went out fishing, so we decide to hike a couple beaches over where Jesse had surfed before. We went on a pretty crazy hike like 1 +1/2 hour accross 2 beaches and like 3 mountains, we got a pretty crazy view of the beahes from an escalated view,and could really see the lay of the land. We made it to a beutiful secluded beach afer getting some nice pics of the beach from the cliffs. Jesse and Leehin had brought their boards, but as me and Andy suspected this spot was a little out of our league, it was pretty small when we first got there, but once Jesse got out to the break the swell really started picking up and was probably aout 6 feet and even had a bit of barrel to it. Andy and I just climbed up on a rock and watched Jesse and Leehin rip these waves, crazy to watch. After a little while Andy and I made the hike back while they were still surfing, definatly the mos I've ever sweated in my life, so hot especially in the dry areas once you get up higher. Once arriving back we laid around a bit more and had some excellent fried fish for lunch (not sure what it's kind, but Andy's got a pic of it on his facebook). In the afternoon I decided to try and paddle out to the less advanced "bingin" reef break, which is down the beach a bit from scar. There's a channel up the centre to paddle in to both breaks, and by the time I had paddled that kilometre Iwas freakin done, I sat on my board and thought about surfing the waves until I looked down and realized itwas low-mid tide and the choral reef was about 3-4 feet under me, and the waves would be above my head...maybe not the best time to try this break out. I slowly made the paddle back in, alot farther when yer shoulders are dead tired. After arriving back we sat around for a bit more and read books and stuff, untilit was complete lw tide when me and Andy decided to walk down and check out some boulders at the end of the beach we had seen on our hike. We walked down there and tried them out, but they were pretty crumbly because of salt water erosion, Andy found a couple that had some good routes but it was prety sketchy. After hiking back we watched a surf video with everyone in the reseraunt and Enjoyed an amazing feast of another of the same fish (huge one between the 2 of us), awsome french fries, veggie soup, big plate of rice and this really good sweet chilli sauce that they made us for the rice, everything was excellent, what a feast...Stuffed! slept well after that.

The next day the 4 of us took a drive to this other beautiful beach resort called tropicala, it was pretty high class and we thought we'd splurge on it for a night, and enjoy some extra comfort. Once we askd for prices thy said it would be over $120 US for the cheapest room they had availabe (they were pretty heavy booked apparently). What a nice place though, beautiful beach and amazing multiple level pool with waterfalls between them and stuff,pretty amazing. There is a break in front of the hotel we checked out, but it was pretty outta control, mostly close-out barrels. We made the drive back which was pretty sweet cause you could see some other breaks that are pretty well known for indo (supersucks and yoyo's). Upon arriving back Andy and I decided to walk to the next beach over where we had seen a nice little secluded beach break, that Leehin said sometimes works. We made it just before high tide and both got in a couple good rides, but once it reached hgh tide it was mostly just breaking onto the beach. Nice to have a beach all to yourselves though and not have to worry about dropping in on anyone ever or anything. We made the walk back and had basically the same dinner as the night before, which we were fine with. Then watched a movie with all the boys.

The next day we headed out a little later after breakfast, packed up the van real tight, 6 people: 3 people in fron seats, one in the middle and me and Andy on the bench seat in the back along with 5 surfboards and a bodyboard inside the van. A little crowded, but we wern't goin to far, we headed to a little unnamed spot that we had passed on the way to scar, when we got there it wasn't really working, so we headed to supersucks, halfway we saw another guy that lives down the beach at scar heading back, so we figured it was't realy doin much and headed back to scar. We got back just before high tide so me and Andy decided to try out bingin, I had done the paddle out, but we figured we'd see if we could find a boat, or do a leisurly paddle out to save our strength for when we got out there. Couldn't find a boat, so we walked out as far as we culd , then paddled out, and were pretty tired, but had enough in us to surf a couple. I caught one decent wave, but didn't make it over to the channel and just got punished while trying to duck dive these huge sets of whitewash. While I was fighting that Andy had 2 good rides he said, but by the time i had fought through all that wash + the paddle out I was to done to continue, once again, paddle in from hell once your tired. Another delicious dinner of Mie goreng.


After uite a lazy morning, it started getting a bit later and close to high tide, so me and Andy grabbed a boat out to bingin. Upon getting out there it looked pretty good, nice and deep (maybe 8-10 ft deep) and mostly folding waves with not much of a barrel. We paddled into the lineup, there were only like 4 guys out, all indonesian. the one guy kinda waved in each of the other guys whenever a good wave came along, and before i knew it a big one was mounting up right behind me. He pointed at me and just said "go" haha, I paddled as fast as I could and got up on one of the longest, nicest waves i've ever had, until the peak I was on met the next peak over and I got smacked off my board, but man was it a sweet ride, I paddled out to the channel and made it back to the lineup without to much fighting, and was stoked to have survived more than one set. I rode in a couple more sweet waves and was super stoked, until i got realy tired and finally had to call it a day after like 5 amazing rides. After that much paddlng around, boy that was some paddle back in, brutal. Definatly stoked to have agood session though, cause today was the last day of our sumbawa adventure, After some dinner we packed up and headed out after saying bye to all the boys, I promised Leehin next time I came we'd surf Scar together, and I plan on delivering on that promise before coming home. Pretty uneventful drive back, same thing with ferry times and stuff. Made it back to Kuta around 9:00 AM and after checking back into our hotel we went to ESC and met up with Jesse for a much needed giant breakfast. Excellent breakfast, as always from the ESC, and lots of bacon for the reunited bacon brothers, haha (inside joke i guess). haha, anyways, excellent trip to a beautiful place, but glad to be back in Kuta for while and just relax around the hotel, and now that the reef hurdle has been cleared alot of new spots are gonna start opening up to us very soon.stay tuned, this could get interesting, haha. Peace out.

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