FEVER DREAM

I put the call out to anyone who wanted to join me. Given the short notice, it was tough to rustle anyone up. The work year was in full swing and people were bound to their desks. But my KT teammate Alexis Mignet put his hand up. He’d never done an Indo trip in his life, so why not?

The only other catch: the team at LZ wouldn’t tell us where the resort was actually located. It’s a well-kept secret by anyone who visits, and after spending a week there, I can see why. All they told us was to get to Bima Airport in East Tenggara by Saturday, and they’d take care of the rest.

And no, I won’t tell you where it is.

Sitting on the fence, four days out – that’s when I get a call from Jeremy Wilmotte from the Armtrong team, the eternal man-child fizzer. He’d caught wind of our trip, and after hearing about this place on the rumor mill – even failing on an attempt the year before – Jez couldn’t resist finding out if this place actually existed, or if it sat next to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He was in. Strike mission team assembled.

That’s how it started. The next part gets a little fuzzy, so you’ll have to excuse me – my poor brain got a little overwhelmed.

Three nights later we step off the plane in Bali. The cocktail of Nag Champa and sewage stings the nostrils, and I’m back to Pirate Island. The memories of old surf trips (and things) come flooding back. Bali is the gateway to so many adventures. The next morning we take a puddle-jump flight to Sumbawa, attempt to fend off the forceful porters and fail, then find ourselves in a truck driving deep into the mountains. Two hours in, after maybe half an hour of driving with nothing but rice paddies and cows out the window, we see ocean. And the fizz starts to bubble.

With still no idea where we are – no internet, no Google Maps, a driver who knows six words of English – we have to rely on good old-fashioned faith that LZ know what they’re doing. Finally, after more mountains, cows, and rice paddies, we pass through a set of ornate gates, weave down a long bamboo-framed driveway, and after 24 hours of travel, we arrive.

Greeted by Craig (the manager) and Samara, our industrious surf guide, yoga instructor, and pro jet ski driver, the mystery of this place swirls so hard our heads might pop off. We’re shown to our own private board lockers and dump all our toys for the week. We’re escorted to our villas, which I’m not understating when I say the floor plan is bigger than my apartment. I didn’t even venture to the other half of my bedroom – or my king-sized bed – the whole week.

Next up, the safety induction – very important given we’re days away from anyone who could perform a decent stitch, let alone treat something serious, and we’re surfing on samurai swords. But needless to say, the itch to see the break was real.

We had lunch overlooking the ocean – a delicate little dish of curried dory in a steamed banana leaf so as not to weigh the belly down – but our eyes were glued to the little whitewash rollers tucking in around the headland. Little did we know, those little whitewash rollers were attached to head-high walls peeling around the corner. We spent the afternoon getting towed into this wildly playful little right-hand point break. Our minds blown by the majesty of this place, we foiled until the sun – now a glowing orange orb diffused by the local fires – sank below the horizon.

The next day, Samara and the water team at LZ loaded our foils onto Lady Bima, one of their three boats, which took us down the deserted coastline – except for a few octopus divers’ shacks – and we went hunting waves. We landed on one of the half-dozen A-frames just pushing over a three-kilometer stretch of reef, and hit this big wedging left that pushed past a jagged rock formation clawing from the ocean like an Atlantean crown.

The morning was spent finding our legs as the tide went out and the swell began to build. Alexis told us they were the biggest waves he’d ever ridden – oh, and didn’t I mention this was his first-ever Indo trip? Sorry, my mind still feels like a bowl of pudding.

Days passed as our wave count crept up over the triple digits. Our legs began to falter, hips seizing, lower backs ready to pack their bags. Thank the Lord for Samara’s morning yoga classes to keep the joints lubricated. Still, the only other person we saw on the break was an old salty dog – Gavin – who was brought in to give the staff and the village next door a first-aid refresher course.

“My world is looping between reality, memory, and fantasy, and I can’t tell which is which.”

Day four (I think). I was woken to the sound of thunder rumbling down the hills behind our villa. I stumbled to breakfast – chafe and stiffness were par for the course on these trips. That’s when I realized there wasn’t a cloud in the sky – it was the ocean crashing against the point.

A 4000-kilojoule, 14-second-period swell had hit. It was on.

The bay was nearly shutting down with eight- to ten-foot bombs. Craig paced up and down the pool’s edge, wondering whether he had to relocate the boats to a safer harbor. Alexis had already tucked into a beer, knowing this would be his rest day. Then I looked over at Jez. He was salivating like Pavlov’s frother. He was already corralling the water team to get the ski ready while bolting on the smallest foil he had.

The next part is where I get decisively clear – watching Jez in his hot-pink rashie charge down ten-foot monsters, huge kegs spitting behind him as he swings for a top turn in the death zone, is something I’ll never forget. Throwing his huge 6’4 frame around like he was Oskar, putting a wild amount of G-force into those Armie foils (much respect to the build quality), as the black-and-white stripes stretched like the USS Enterprise had activated warp speed.

And on this day – the big day – I’ll hold to the belief that I saw Jez tuck into the elusive “foil barrel.” Like a UFO sighting, it’s reserved for conspiracy theorists and tinfoil hatters. And let’s face it, I didn’t have much credibility as a narrator anyway – but I saw him get barreled.

“Watching Jez charge ten-foot monsters in a hot-pink rashie is something I’ll never forget.”

I also saw a goat dance the merengue, so you be the judge…

That was a wild day. I even took a few bombs – decidedly smaller and remaining securely on the shoulder, away from anything that looked like Satan’s washing machine.

The rest of the week calmed a bit, but there was still a playground of waves everywhere we looked. They had to be ridden, and there was no one around to do it. So it was up to us three, and so we filled our bag. We winged, downwinded, foil-drove, and towed waves I’ve never seen the likes of – and I’ve been on some trips. Alexis, the poor guy, has been ruined. That was his virgin trip. Jez and I had to explain that it wasn’t your standard trip – this was something written about in Foiling Mag.

We hobbled through the airport, bodies hanging on by a thread, and when our flights got called it felt like the end of Stand by Me. No words needed – just a look. You could see it in each other’s eyes. It happened. We were changed.

Now, sitting here writing this at my computer, my mind deceives me, prods me with doubt. It all feels so unbelievable it could easily be fobbed off as delusion, a fantasy… a fever dream. Did we actually set out for a strike mission… and score?

The only anchor to my sanity now are the reef cuts on my feet – evidence that we went somewhere and rode something. But how long will they last…