July 7th, 2008

SMAC airlines has been grounded for the third time this season, no reason given from them.  This unfortunate and reoccurring event has already affected 3 trips this season! 

WavePark Mentawai reminds all currently booked guests that travel insurance is mandatory!  Travel insurance is mostly thought of as a way to alleviate costs incurred should serious medical attention be required during your trip.  However, most travel insurance also covers the eventuality that during your trip, the Padang - Mentawai or return flight will be cancelled, causing early or late departure from WavePark.  Being off schedule can result in having to rebook or repurchase domestic or international tickets, as well as hotel costs, or even days missed at the resort. 

Make sure you're covered and remember, we never said it would be easy getting here.  If it was easy, everybody would be doing it!

June 3rd, 2008

The fuel crisis has broken after almost a month of chaos, and the flights are running smoothly again!  Police enforced prohibition of the export of fuel to the Mentawais (their definition of "controlling the hoarding of fuel") meant that we had to be extra creative in our logistics to get guests out and back to the islands.  Brought home once again what it means to be "in the middle of nowhere".  Disappointing on the whole that it happened at all, but with an increase of (on average) 28% in fuel prices, I can understand how the government didn't want to take any chances.  Last time the fuel went up so much, people were hoarding fuel until all the pumps went literally dry, effectively bringing the entire economy of West Sumatra to a halt.  This time wasn't as bad in that regard, but for the outlying counties scattered around West Sumatra, it was even worse than last time.  As our friend John said one night recently, "we've got to make this meeting!  We heard that there are 50 liters of gasoline for sale!  It's like a drug!".

So, now the price has increased (doubled in some cases) over diesel, gasoline and kerosene, we are finally seeing an end to our crisis.

May 15th, 2008

Finally!  The new bungalows are open for business.   If you are a return guest, you have automatic priority for using the new bungalows, for which we are charging not a penny more (for this season at least).  Click here to see the photographs of the new bungalows to see for yourself what we're talking about.

Crises after crises here in West Sumatra.  First our airline got grounded again (Padang - Mentawai), and now the export of fuel from Padang is forbidden!  Word has it that the cost of fuel will increase shortly, and people are keen to horde the fuel in anticipation of needing it later.  This makes it very difficult for outlying provinces to receive fuel, as anybody shipping a drum of fuel to an island is seen to be hording (how else are we going to get it there?).  Sounds like next week the ban may lift, but we're cutting our burgerworld trips short till then...

February 16th, 2008

If you're missing the news from 2007, you can click on the news archive button.

A quick trip to NZ, documented on the HOT O T PRESS page returned the faith that the south pacific also has good waves.

Back in Padang now, the office and island are gearing up for a final month of preparations before our guests arrive.  We're taking on 6 guests for the first month, until the new bungalows are ready.  We still have good availability for the second and third trip during that month.  It will be an awesome time to get the entire WavePark facilities, staff and waves to just you and 5 of your mates... 

We're very excited by the delivery of our granite and marble, sinks, lamps, furniture, pillows and 20 cases of Storm Beer from Bali.  We'll be the only ones in Sumatra to sell the 4 delicious flavors of Storm's micro-brewed beer.

We've got a new t-shirt in the making, one we've been thinking about for years.  The way things go around here, I figured we better get on it before somebody else does. 

How many times a day do our guests say:

Aside from that, there's not much else to report.  I'll have another HOT O T PRESS in a couple weeks with fresh photos from our new massage hut, video shooting platform on the point and of course the bungalow photos.