It started with a simple text message …
“Got a good one tonight at Lances from one of my old marks”
Any text from MD is worth following up on and the conversation we had was like the conversations so many surfers have. It was about a single wave and the circumstances surrounding it. The conversation was long, way longer than it should have been considering about 40 other things that were pressing and right bang in the middle of something we refer to at Indies Trader called “Critical Path” … shit that is not smouldering but more so a baby inferno, the kind of things that happen in a company that operates in two or three different oceans at the same time and does everything from underwater surveys and conservation projects right through to surf tourism. But this, this was one of my favourite conversations in the last month.
This mattered because this was surf and at Indies Trader NOTHING matters more, to a surfer nothing matters more. We spent the time on a full breakdown, the period, the wind, what board made the cut, how the boat happened to end up at Lances when we sort of avoid the name spots these days, we ran through the waves, @walker.daly had (Lots of em) the waves @cburniske ticked off (Long and a few deep) the waves @healywaterops put on the list (Deep but nothing giant yet) all the normal stuff. The Starlink connected version of a chat in the carpark at the surf, equipment came up (Props to Rusty and KT) and from there we got to the less urgent but perhaps important stuff anyway, the more nuts and bolts conversations about parts and movements and weather in other parts of the world other than the Mentawai Islands. El Nino came up and there was quiet hopeful speculation on the coming Pacific season and the prospect of a special year, no matter where the conversation went it kept returning to the surf and the buzz from one wave that was powering stoke in two separate locations via a satellite connection that has changed the entire world of remote locations and surfing them.
We covered what we needed to, then I could hear the back deck crackling on the radio in the background of our conversation and MD bringing up the anchor, the client on board is an awesome bloke who has the boat locked in for a month and is rotating through two separate groups of mates who all share his want for perfect surf with minimal crowds. They were heading in for the change-over, bunkering fuel, taking on fresh produce, beer and anything else needed. In 48 hours time the Mighty MV Indies Trader III would be back out here parked in front of a perfect wave and running clients out to the take-off, same as she has for decades. Martin had the forecast open on the dash of the wheelhouse and as he drove he was breaking it down, things looked great, good times forecast for all coming aboard and everything as it should be on the most critical path of all … the path to surf!
None of it was for IG, there were no influencers leveraging their following in exchange for a trip, and I suspect the main reason any device would have been open at all in the last few days would have been for a forecast update. You can imagine a world though where one of the influencer crowd was onboard and maybe it would be to reels and not a post, a quick montage of sunsets and perfect waves as directed by thier agency with the obligatory “I’m on a boat” selfie, perhaps even the hashtag #Authentic.
