Indonesia Surf Resort New Archive.

October 26th, 2010

Big, slow, long earthquake last night, and a couple tremblers afterwards. Turns out it was a 7.5 about 70 nm south of us. We had about 6 waves on the beach after about 20 minutes, but no waves broke the berm, and were about the same height as high tide earlier in the day. No damage here, but reports of damage to other resorts and charter boats further south. Will update as news comes in.

June 16th, 2010

The season is going well, in fact as of now we're fully booked until October 9th, 2010. We're looking forward to all the return and new guests arriving on the island. The swell has been good this season so far, with a lot of 200 - 210 swells coming in. We've had some great days, big and perfect.

Also, we're stoked to announce that we've released our dates and rates for 2011. We're stepping up our services again in 2011, utilizing the services of the Mentawai Charter Boat. We're expecting to get our guests across the channel in 4 hours or less, in air conditioned comfort. This is a huge step for us, as since 1998 we've had challenges galore trying to figure out the best way to get our guests from Padang - Mentawai return. With this new service, we know we're onto the best option in the Mentawais for getting guests from A - B.

April 7th, 2010

This morning at 5:15am local time, a 7.7 earthquake was experienced. We DID NOT feel anything at WavePark, and only knew something had happened by the television that the crew watches during the morning. Thank you for all the concerned emails from friends and family.

From USGS:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010utc5.php#summary

The Banyak Islands, Sumatra earthquake of April 6, 2010 occurred as a result of thrust faulting on or near the subduction interface plate boundary between the Australia-India and Sunda plates. At the location of this earthquake, the Australia and India Plates move north-northeast with respect to the Sunda plate at a velocity of approximately 60-65 mm/yr. On the basis of the currently available fault mechanism information and earthquake depth, it is likely that this earthquake occurred along the plate interface.

The subduction zone surrounding the immediate region of this event last slipped during the Mw 8.6 earthquake of March 2005, and today's event appears to have occurred within the rupture zone of that earthquake. Today's earthquake is the latest in a sequence of large ruptures along the Sunda megathrust, including two M 7.4 earthquakes beneath Simeulue 125 km to the north in 2002 and 2008; a M 9.1 earthquake that ruptured to within 125 km north of this earthquake in 2004; a M 8.5 375 km to the south in 2007; and a M 7.5 260 km to the south near Padang in 2009.

March 24th, 2010

The season started smoothly yesterday with the 6 guests trying out our new speedboat transport. 3.5 hours across the channel, and although the weather was kinda iffy, they got through in the end.

Just like to say thank to all the people who helped us with our new house/office in the off-season; demolition, construction, painting, making furniture, supplies, etc. Alice, Dave and Doreen, Thea, Ucok, Henny, Edi and Rita, Mon, Mas, Luke and Kristin, our parents, and anybody else I've forgotten.

Now we've got a comfortable place to call our own for the next 2 years, as well as a new WavePark office to base our Padang operations out of.

January 10th, 2010

Happy New Year! I've decided on my top 21 photographs from 2009, and posted them on Hot Off the Press . We've got more to come including the best wipeouts of 2009, and the photographer's picks, so stay tuned.

December 13th, 2009

Nils made another trip at the end of the season, and has just posted the photos of his trip online. I always like seeing Nils view of the world through his lens. It gives me a fresh perspective on what we see everyday, and I think you will appreciate it also.

November 16th, 2009

Luke came out this year and upon returning home put together some snapshots of life at the WavePark. So far he has documented a short promotional video, accommodation, mentawai mooring movement, guest activities and meet the crew at WavePark.

A huge thank you to Luke, and apologies again for losing your water camera! Luke took some great shots taken from the water BEFORE the camera was lost, and next year I promise we'll have another crack at it. For now, if you go to bengbengs, you'll find a gopro camera somewhere on the reef!

October 15th, 2009

We're open for the last two trips of the season starting this coming Saturday. A big thank you to the guests who bit the bullet and had their trip cancelled in order to help us out. We managed to salvage many of the most important things including all our original company and vehicle documents, passports and imported medicine and personal belongings including clothes. This 10 days work has saved us 4 or more months of work that would have been necessary to replace all the lost documents and we have taken many lessons from the experience on how to do things better next time. Check out the entire earthquake blog if you want to freak out.

We hope Padang will continue to recover smoothly, and will be playing our part and setting up a new office in town at the end of the season. Thank you to everybody for all your positive mail and support. We're happy to be alive and ready to get WavePark guests barreled again.

October 5th, 2009

Hi,

just an update to let you know what has been going on around here.

Alice and I got back to Padang on Tuesday afternoon, 6 days after the earthquake. My jeep was unscathed, although the apartments next to the garage where I store it is tilting precariously towards the house, and I fear for the lives of the people living in the house. They're living in their garage, but if the apartments come down when they're anywhere near their house, they're done.

We both shed a tear to say goodbye to our old house, now just a pile of rubble. More than a couple friends around town said that our's was the most spectacular demise. Whereas other buildings lost a floor and dropped straight down, and others are ruined, but you can still make out the original structure somewhat. Ours is somewhat like a stack of pancakes that fell off the waiters platter and ended up splatting on the floor.

We had neighbors on both sides of our house die, as 4 building that were tied together came down at once. We would surely be dead if we were there at the time.

Henny, our office manager was in the building when it started shaking, and as we had trained her from day one, she used the keys left in the front door to get out before the building came down. From the sounds of it, all over west sumatra people had about 10-15 seconds to get to the middle of the street before buildings collapsed. Henny ended up in the middle of the street with her eyes closed and hands covering her ears. She said it was like being in a James Bond movie, but the real thing had clouds of glass and concrete dust blowing all over her.

We were offered several houses as temporary shelter, and ended up at Matt and Jenny's house, 25 minutes east of Padang. It is a great house and mostly undamaged from the previous quake. Mostly it is quiet and far from everything else, so a great respite for us.

Wednesday morning we went back to the house and viewed the remains during the day, and were excited to find some things of ours easily accessible. We got together a crew of guys and although were unprepared (forgot shoes and gloves), we started digging in earnest and after several hours digging and sporting fine sunburns, we had a jeep full of 2 passports, immigration papers, original car registrations, 1/2 of Alice's clothes, all our music cds, some love letters and a few other knick knacks that made our day. When we had moved into the building 3 years ago, there was a very strange concrete block in our bedroom that perhaps somebody had installed as a counter on which to cook. We had left it in our bedroom, mostly because it was so solid, and THAT is what was holding up 2 stories worth of concrete. It just so happened that our desk was the same size as the concrete block, so the desk in this little crawl space was in its original state. Unfortunately because it was so accessible, somebody had got there before us and stolen all of the cash that we had, about $6000 worth.

Thursday we went in the morning to excavate my rebuilt holden that was a Mike and Vera's house. His garage had come down on top of the Holden, but by some miracle, the entire shed was just leaning on the back of the car. With 8 of us and a bunch of bickering over the subtleties of engineering, we managd to lift the shed off the car, start it up and drive it out without mishap. The car has NO scratches on it, as the single piece of wood was leaning on the chrome roof trim! 2 cars OK. After receiving a text message from our digging crew, we head back to the old house and spent the rest of the afternoon getting another great sunburn, and a stationwagon full of stuff. Our roomates Sas and Tom have been unable to make it to the old house, so I'm posting a video to give Sas (who is in America) a sense of where we are finding our stuff. We easily have the craziest excavation crew in the entire west sumatra province.

Today is Friday and we're taking it slow. It is easy to overdo things when there is so much to do, but in my experience conserving energy and releasing it consistently is better than huge efforts ending up in illness and uselessness, especially in this climate, and especially in this stress. Our accountant has a house near town that was untouched by the earthquake, with a garage adjoining the house that will fit one, if not both cars. We've been offered the house as a temporary house/office, and it will do nicely. Being in tsunamiville, it isn't a permanent fix, but at this time with a surf season left to wrap up being the major draw on our time, we don't have many options at this point, and won't be spending much time there anyway.

Padang is quickly returning to normality. Last night and today the electricity was on for 12 hours straight. Water is running again in some parts of the city, and many businesses are opening again, including restaurants.

Overall Alice and I are very happy to a) be alive, b) have great friends who are also alive and c) be alive.

Our hearts go out everyday to our friends and neighbors who lost family members.

Sporadic communication has returned to Padang, allowing our friends to share with the world just how devastated Padang is. We are headed back to the Padang tomorrow, and have had friends tell us to expect the worst. Neighbors on either side of our office were killed, and our hearts go out to their families in their grief. We are especially thankful that Henny our office manager and Shane were able to make it out of the building before it collapsed.

We've decided to shut the resort for at least this next trip, and apologies to all those guests affected. Our decision was based on too much uncertainty for logistics, specifically fuel and food leaving Padang for the Mentawais. In our experience with these events in the past, when the mainland is having difficulties, the islands are the first to get cut off, and WOW Padang is having major difficulties.

I've received so many offers of help and support. Short of flying over here and helping us dig our passports out of the rubble, I would like to direct everybody's attention to Surf Aid International.

SAI have been our friends since day zero here at WavePark, and during several disasters here in Sumatra they have given invaluable assistance in crucial times and saved many lives. With a full staff and office in Padang, logistics support and an international network of supporters, SAI is uniquely positioned to help Padang get back on its feet again.

We received several news items this morning which made us jump for joy. People that have confirmed being OK: Shane, Ayen, Henny, Tia, Scuzz, Christina and all Bevy's crew, Sri and Spice crew, Eric and Riki, Vera and Mike.

Communication with Padang is improving and we're getting more and more news back.

Our office has been completely flattened to the ground and we've lost everything there.

It's 1730 on the island and everybody is fine. The guests spent the day surfing Bengbengs and Tikis and getting small pieces of information relayed by the crew watching local television on the island, and Alice and I frantically searching for information from our networks online.

Unfortunately we can't get through to our office staff in Padang yet. In fact, we can't get through to anybody in Padang. Bits and pieces have surfaced thoughout the day, and the picture painted is grim.

Ambacang Hotel, Bumiminang Hotel and Spice Homestay are all unusable, with specific reports of over 100 people still trapped in the ruins of the Ambacang. Sri and her crew from Spice are all safe.

The airport has opened again to allow people in and out of West Sumatra, but we are unable to get confirmation on any flights having landed in Padang yet. At this point we are assuming people are getting in.

At this point we are concerned mostly about our friends and families in Padang whom we are unable to get news about. We're also concerned about food supply and ferry/flight logistics to the islands. Answering all of these questions will enable us to make an educated guess as to whether we will be shutting our doors or not. If you have any questions, you can email alice [email protected] or [email protected], or call +6286812132215.

An earthquake of 7.6 magnitude struck 30 miles WNW of Padang this evening. We felt it quite strongly on the island, and although it wasn't as strong as the 2007 shaker, we decided to evacuate the island just in case. Western Samoa is fresh on our minds and we send our best wishes to those dealing with the aftermath of their 8.0 and ensuing tsunami that took lives and property yesterday morning.

We understand from here there is damage in Padang, and unable to reach anybody, our hopes go out that all our friends and family are safe and sound. We'll be putting up updates as they become available, but hopefully not about any more big earthquakes.

We've released our 2010 dates on our schedule page. Also, we've calculated the price for our "best of" hand bound coffee table books in both A3 and A4 sizes (see June 17th entry below). Please contact us if you are interested in receiving one or all of these beautifully bound souvenirs from WavePark Mentawai.

We're publishing "Best Of" WavePark Mentawai Yearbooks from 2004 - 2008. These books are individually hand bound coffee table quality books from our friend at Momento Productions, NZ. Please contact us if you would like to order one.

We just added a new HISTORY section to the website, detailing where we came from. Where we came from is who we are and where we're going, so for those of you that haven't yet met WavePark, you can get to know us better before you arrive.

We've also changed our entire movies section, and added about 5 that weren't there before. Most of the videos now are hosted on youtube and we have our own channel; wavepark. This means no more trouble for people trying to watching videos that weren't compatible with their PC or MAC before. If you've had trouble in the past, try again!

Also, here's a draft version of the new t-shirt and our political message for 2009:

Due to the decrease in early season bookings, we're requiring a minimum group of 4 to open the first 3 trips in March. Once each of the trips open with that single booking, we'll happily return to our usual "no minimum" booking policy. But for now, we've got to cover costs. We're sorry for anybody that had planned to come alone in March, but we'll be updating our schedule the moment there are any changes, so stay tuned for early season opportunities to score empty waves.

Our friend Denise just wrote an article on her trip to the WavePark. If you've never been here, she gives a good picture of what goes on.

Also, our friend Luke Peterson just uploaded a sick video to facebook. If you know him check it out, otherwise become a fan of WavePark Mentawai Surf Resort to watch it. I think he'll upload it there eventually.

The long and the short of it is that in our 10 years of operation, we've never offered a better value for money offer than this one. Pay in full by March 3rd and get any 2009 trip for the 2008 price.

For our return clients, we're offering 20% discount off the 2008 price for any 2009 trip booked and paid for in full before March 3rd! As incentive for bringing their friends, we're offering return clients a bonus of an EXTRA 10% off the price of their trip for EVERY new guest booked on their trip.

Well, the old news is that Barack Obama has won the election, and congratulations to him from WavePark! We're hoping that with Obama in the white house, some things are going to change.

As of yesterday we've closed up shop for 2008. We would like to extend a huge thank you to all of our guests that came to visit this year, and in order to honor their memories, we're introducing "PROJECT WAVEPARK GUESTBOOK". It's not finished yet, but we'll be releasing a link shortly to give you access to original handwritten guest book entries dating back to 1998 when we first opened.

Thank you also to all the WavePark staff that made 2008 a great success, and hopefully a stepping stone to getting more guests more perfect waves in 2009!

The Mentawai Mooring Movement in conjunction with WavePark Mentawai and Kandui Resort has finished the pre-season goal of installing 21 moorings. Big thanks also to Tom, Marco and Andrea from Ailota Resort for loaning the MMM dive tanks for the mooring installations, and Jamie, Jubilee and Oliver for their tireless efforts in splicing, diving and fund-raising.

There is an amazing amount of satisfaction had by all to watch resort speedboats tie up to the moorings, whereas before they would throw their anchors on the reef, slowly destroying what little is left of the pristine coral around the WavePark.

On a different subject, Ja, our trusty speedboat driver, and one of our most senior crew, has decided to retire his position at WavePark. Ja has plans to get married and start his own building supply business in his hometown of Siberut. WavePark thanks Ja for all his years of great work with us, and wishes him the best with his future endeavours and new family!

The Mentawai Mooring Movement received the official support of the Camat of South Western Siberut, and the Head of all Mentawai! In the form of a letter to WavePark, the Camat outlines his support and the MMM's goals below:

To: Christie Carter
CEO PT HARTA KARUN
in Padang

With Respect,
In accordance with our meeting at your office in Padang, I am in complete agreement with the goals of the Mentawai Mooring Movement. Specifically one of the purposes you outlined is to preserve the natural environment especially the growth of coral and in the context of being concerned about our county, that is the county of South Western Siberut Island, Mentawai.

Therefore, in regards to the Mentawai Mooring Movement program, we, as chief of all of South Western Siberut and also the chief of all of Mentawai, Mr. Bupati, would like to extend our official support in activities mentioned above.

With this letter that I have sent, and for your care and cooperation, we thank you sincerely.

Chief of South Western Siberut.

Copy of letter to be sent to:
Chief of Mentawai, Mr. Bupati
Head of Tourism
Copy for Office Use.

WavePark has finished revamping the website. Although you won't notice many changes, the biggest change has come in "the waves" page, where we've made it easier to navigate between wave types and names, and have added some new photos to the various waves.

Todo (AKA Toto, AKA Puppy #38) has been given to the new chief of south western Siberut. Although we will miss puppy #38, we're glad to have one less barker on the island, and Todo was really a barker! We are sure we will be able to see him again, and check up on his progress as the runt of Salt's 5th litter. Salt and Snowy have both been put on birth control in the form of an injection once every 6 months. Although some of us LOVE to have puppies around, others of us loath the chore of finding new homes for all the little ones. Good luck Todo.

SMA is flying across the channel again, having passed their yearly safety audit by the Indonesian Aviation Authority. I have my own ideas what uses these audits have in a country like Indonesia, but I'm not going to put my foot in my mouth over it.

A fifth mooring buoy has been installed at Tikis, and it is a pleasure to be able to tie up to these moorings, rather than drop our anchors on the reef. Thanks Mentawai Mooring Movement (www.mentawaimooringmovement.org)!

WPM's own video has been released, chronicling February - July 2008 in waves, fish, scenery, and random shots with a purpose to make you think one thing, and then think something completely different? Sound intriuging? Go to PORTALS OF FUN MOVIE. to check it out. There is also a link for a higher resolution version (60mb). Email us if you are interested in the link for that one.

WPM as of yesterday has just finished installing a 24/7 internet system on the island. This will allow guests a new level on connectivity while they are away on holiday, or even mix business with pleasure. Some guests will yearn for the days of no by-the-minute swell forecast updates "it'll be here in an hour dude...", or being able to tell their friends and co-workers, "nup, there's no way to contact me, forget about it."

As of this week we are implementing 2 new features for our addicted viewer's pleasure:

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!

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.

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...

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.

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.

We've been hard at work since you all went home, building bungalow #1 and 2. For an interesting animation of what we've been doing for the last 2 weeks anyway, check out our animationed construction file. There are also some better quality photographs of bungalow #1.

The waves have been nonstop which makes for difficult construction, but we've been dedicated and even gave up some guaranteed good Rifles sessions to get the trusses up in the air and the roof on!

We may have to put our prices up again. The Mentawai government has informed us that they have levied a new tax since July 2007, although we just now found out about it. They will charge us 10% of the gross value of our value added services, such as accommodation, food and beverage. On top of this the federal Indonesian government has publicized their plan to put fuel prices up next year. This country isn't like America or New Zealand. The fuel is still government owned and funded, so the price doesn't fluxuate day to day. The last time they put the prices up was last year, and it was a 100% rise overnight! Since I have been in Indonesia, they have yet to have a fuel price hike for less than a 25% increase!

Anyway, the majority of our running costs are from fuel usage; getting you to the waves everyday, as well as keeping those fans going 24/7 from the generator. We'll do our best to keep the prices low, but such is life when oil keeps hiking up.

The crew had a great break for the Lebaran Holiday, and WavePark will this continue this tradition of shutting down for a week in 2008.

Speaking of which, we have released our new prices and schedule effective immediately.

Check it all out because there are some great discounts available, and some improved trip lengths for 2008.

I've been getting lots of emails from people concerned about WavePark. Thought I would give a description of what has happened and how things stand as of now, Friday midday, on Mainuk Island. I'm writing this from the island, so some of the exact details that I will relate are still not confirmed, such as exact magnitudes. Most of the specific details are related to me by the WavePark crew that now have TV in their crew accommodation, so they've been keeping up on the news.

Wednesday night we got back from a surf to the island to the guests who had stayed behind, wide eyed, having just experienced the earthquake (magnitude 8.4) based in Bengkulu. We had crew on the beach with flashlights for a couple hours, and the ocean did drop and then rise again about 1 meter, within a hour of the earthquake. That night there were a few aftershocks. I was up and on the computer at 6:30 the next morning (Thursday), checking and writing emails when the "big one" struck. It was by far the biggest earthquake I have ever experienced. I probably would have fallen to the ground had I not been a surfer and concentrating on staying on my feet. Fridges, TV's and computer monitor fell over. Plants and books off shelves, mirrors broken in the bathroom. The sound of the coconut trees and ground shaking in unison is something I will never forget...

We immediately turned off the generator and evacuated the island having a small bag each already packed from the night before. We anchored on the north side of the sand island, close enough to keep an eye on the water movement, but also close enough to deep water if we had to run. We spent about 2 hours anchored, listening to the shortwave radio. Our crew manager got a lift from a passing speedboat back to Siberut to check on his family. The center of that earthquake was in a town called Sungai Penuh (full river) which is the town closest to Padang in the neighboring province of Jambi on mainland Sumatra. This meant the earthquake was a volcanic category and not undersea, so we headed back to the island. There was also a significant change in ocean level while we were anchored. The sand island was clearly exposed, and then covered, and then exposed again in a space of 20 minutes. There were 2 significant earthquakes originating from the Mentawai islands
while we were anchored, and not only could we feel them through the hull of the boats, but the water all around the boat changed color as sediment was shook off the bottom.

We returned to survey the damage: The old crew quarters slid off its foundation and crumpled, but that was going to happen in the next big squall anyway. The main accommodation handled the shake wonderfully, with only a few cross braces under the house "popped", especially the ones that were nailed, rather than screwed together. The bar, games room and crew's quarters are all fine, some cracks in the small amount of concrete that we used, but overall the shake was a great test for the construction methods that we've used, mostly utilizing stainless bolts and screws that will shear off but not pull out. We've heard unfortunate stories of people's houses and offices in Siberut and Sipora that are destroyed completely, but no stories so far of casualities in the villages closest to us. Luckily people were already on edge from the night before, and it happened during daylight
hours.

Throughout yesterday, we experienced an average of 1 significant aftershock every hour, including 1 that was from a different direction (based in southern mentawai), and one that made the ground "jump" briefly before it started shaking, which was a new experience for everybody. We had a very surreal game of frisbee golf, wandering around the coconut plantation throwing frisbees at trees that were moving, while drinking beer of course! We had a full alert tsunami watch all night last night, with rotating crews on standby in the speedboats, all bags packed and on the boat. The GPS was loaded with a route to deep water, and extra batteries for just about everything were ready.
We remain on high alert, as there are still earthquakes of over 6.6 registering off the coast of Bengkulu, triggering further tsunami warnings, but up until now we feel lucky to have only had to pick up a few pieces of broken glass and mirror.

There are 3 new Hot O T Press releases now out, including what was labeled as 12ft. @ 18 sec. in the news August 3rd below. It turned out to be downgraded to 9ft. @ 18 sec., but it was still enough to make hideaways look like Pipeline! We ended up surfing Ebay for the peak of the swell.

We have another special on surfingresort.com for mid septemeber. Check under "latest discounted trips".

The other news is that our bitch Salt has had her 4th litter of puppies. Salt, aka puppy factory, has now added 31 dogs to this planet in her 3 1/2 years on earth. Stay tuned for some cute photos of the new ones growing up!

We have a new venture with surfingresort.com which has started up offering last minute discounted trips to various locations around the world. Check them out if you want to get out here for cheap, and can drop everything for a swell!

For now, we've got a big swell coming next Sunday/Monday, 12ft. @ 18 sec., more than enough for a new hot o t press release, stay tuned!

We're all good again with the flights. Sorry to be so long between updates, we've been full on the island, getting our guests the best waves of their lives. Want proof, check out hot off the press !

So yeah, SMA airlines is running smoothly between Padang and the islands, no worries. They received the highest marks in their category for safety, maintenance and insurance, the major delay in getting operational again was chasing down a bureaucrat for a signature which took an entire week and cost the airline an extra 5 flights... SMA, we can relate and feel your pain.

Also, we're offering a couple specials for late August/early September to help fill up some voids in the bookings. Contact [email protected] for the details, but don't bother unless you can commit to at least a 15 day trip.

As of last Saturday, SMA airlines has been grounded following the commencement of a national audit on all airlines, as ordered by the Indonesian president's office. SMA is used by WavePark Mentawai to fly clients to and from mainland Sumatra, to our island paradise. Following an EU blacklist of all 51 Indonesian Airlines, the president has stated that while financially the ban won't be serious for Indonesia, the "moral ramifications" to the country are serious enough to warrant prompt action.

All Indonesian airlines are being audited in the last week; safety and service records, as well as insurance requirements being scrutinized by the Indonesian Aviation office.

We applaud any effort made by the Indonesian government to clean up their act, and we applaud the EU for taking a stand against what they consider to be liabilities in the air above their citizens.

However, painting a picture of dangerous and ill-equipped aircraft with such a broad brush does lessen the possibility for a fair and balanced perspective of technology and maintenance policies not only within Indonesia, but for all developing Asian countries. Malaysia for example, with their wildly successful "Air Asia" budget flights has so impacted the market that it has created a need for entirely new airport terminals in most busy airports around SE Asia. Having dominated the domestic and short-haul international market in SE Asia for that last 4 years, the airline has turned its sights on a long haul international market, with flights between Kuala Lumpur, Australia and England scheduled to begin in September. A definite threat to established airlines with old school pricing paradigms, Air Asia will start impacting demand all over the world. Richard Branson of mega brand "Virgin" fame takes the threat seriously, he is currently in talks for buying out the remaining original owners of Air Asia...

So while I commend the EU, I also am concerned that the ban is a pre-emptive political and financial strike to the heart of a region that perhaps threatens the financial success of a few in power. How is a brand new Boeing 737-300 flown by Indonesian carrier Garuda any less safe than exactly the same model plane flown by Australian brand Quantas? One will still be allowed to fly to Brussels, and one won't. Physically however, there is no difference. That kind of overly broad policy brushing doesn't fix the problem, it only aggravates development.

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) -- All Indonesian airlines including national carrier Garuda will be banned from flying to the European Union within a week, the European Commission said on Thursday, updating a "blacklist" of carriers deemed unsafe.

Indonesian carriers do not currently fly to Europe so the ban is also a warning to the 27-nation EU's consumers and travel agencies not to use the country's airlines, an EU official said.

"European citizens should avoid flying with these carriers," the official said. "They are really unsafe."

Angola's TAAG Angolan Airlines and Volare Aviation Enterprise of Ukraine would also be banned, the EU executive said. Ten Russian airlines, six from EU member Bulgaria and eight from Moldova will cease operations within the bloc.

"The EU blacklist will prove to be an essential tool not only to prevent unsafe airlines from flying to Europe ... but also to make sure that airlines and civil aviation authorities take appropriate actions to improve safety," Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a ban on most aircraft operated by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), in force since March, will be lifted for specific Boeing 747 and Airbus 310 planes, it said. The carrier's fleet of Boeing 777s remains authorized.

The Indonesian carrier ban applies to all 51 airlines certified in that country.

The decision, following advice from an EU air safety committee, is expected to be formalized within a week.

There's lots of talk going around about the size of the "10 year swell". "Saw the photos of Lances man, that's outta control!" The only thing I can say is that there is no more humbling experience than watching weeks worth of your life wash away under the brunt of a huge swell. At the peak of the swell, we had 1ft. waves washing through our front garden, which, as anybody that has spent any amount of time on the island knows, Alice and I have put a lot of work into! On the one hand, at least we got an entire new beach out of it, beautiful, clean white sand delivered to our doorstep, we never could have done it ourselves. We also get to know what can handle the salt and what can't, because at some point in the future, it will happen again! On the other hand, what an experience to go through, watching all those hours of weeding and planting, nursing and encouraging all end up under 3ft. of salt water.

We've got a new video up on the site, courtesy of Tom Shand. One of the most professionally edited guest videos that I've ever seen, the extract from Tom's "Boats, Barrels and a tailess monkey called Spank" provides the viewers with a guest's perspective of what goes in the WavePark. The file is a Windows Media Player file and is over 64mb, so it'll take you a couple days to download on a dial-up internet connection. Its a great watch regardless, well worth the wait!

Flying out really makes a difference (see news below)! 35 minutes from Sumatra to Mentawai. A serious life changer for all those prior guests that had to deal with the public ferry. For new guests, you'll never know what you were missing all those years ago.

We've been having fun on the island with the new pool table. International regulation size (9ft.) and brand new, this toy gets almost more use than the generator! We've had visits from many charter boats and other resort guests trying to claim local champion.

In another first for WavePark Mentawai, our guests as of tomorrow will be flying out and back to the islands!! Times they are a changin'! With a one way flight time of 35 minutes, there's not even enough time to read that new surfing mag that you bought in duty free! From the airport to the WavePark will take minimum 90 minutes, so in a total of 2 hours and 5 minutes after leaving Padang, you could be pulling up to the beach at Hideaways. Check out our "getting there" page for more details.

This new mode of transport will be our standard for the rest of the season and your daily WavePark price includes the airport transfers and the flight out and back to the Mentawais (including your surfboards) amongst our usual inclusive features.

First trip of the season succesfully completed with our group of Americans, Kiwis, and Brits sent back to their various regular lives with smiles on their faces. We documented their fun and as always put it on the "hot off the press" page. Of course, after we leave to get back to the city, the swell comes up even more, and is predicted to pump over the next week at least! The new guests are stoked to be walking into fresh waves, and especially as there have been no charter boats seen anywhere for weeks! I had a report of Hideaways A+ and Rifles on within 24 hours of each other, and only 5 of our guests out!

Earthquake! 6.2 about 50km NNE of the WavePark office struck yesterday at 11am. It was a good shaker, stuff off the shelves, cracks in the walls, and we evacuated to higher ground (along with the rest of Padang) until we found out that it was a volcanic earthquake, not underwater... Around the highland volcanoes in West Sumatra, over 71 people have been counted dead, and our hearts go out to their friends and families. A sleepless night of aftershocks has left everybody with a numb feeling of trauma and shock. We've got our bags packed near the door and are ready to rush out the next time the earth moves.

Things moving right along. We've installed a new RGBAN Satellite internet system to help us and our guests stay in touch with the rest of the world. It's going to cost $5 USD per 500kb uploaded or downloaded, but that is a lot of information by text only. If I was to send this update via text only email, it would be around 5 kb!

We've got some new toys for the guests, fishing rods (lures not supplied), snorkeling equipment, digital projector (for those great slide show nights), pool table, badminton court and 9-hole frisbeegolf course. We've got a new bartender, some new cocktails (try "blood on the reef"), and some games that will make you drink, and some games that will make you think.

That is about it unless you want to hear about 4-6ft. off-season rifles with only 3 people out... I thought not.

We've got a couple new things on. The first is the additions to our movies page. We have some absolutely filthy footage of Hideaways to back up all the photos that we have spread all over this website. Sometimes I see the photos we put on here and say to myself, "they're not going to believe it's real!" With digital photography, it's easy to make a place look a little bit more offshore, a little bit nicer, I could even make a spot look less crowded if I was so inclined!! But with video footage straight from the guests' cameras, we are all put in their shoes. What is is like to sit in the channel and watch hideaways do its thing? One of my favourites is (...click here to find out) The rest you can find on our movies page.

The other news is that although our new year's special is finished as of Jan. 15th, we're implementing something new for those of you who don't mind a little extra legwork with your mates. Book 5 guests and we'll give you 50% off the total cost of your booking at WPM. This is a logical progression from our "book 10 get the 11th free", I think it's going to be easier for people to book 5 and get a really decent incentive than it will be to fill the camp (although that incentive still exists). In order to get the discounts, you need to be able to get your group's passport information, deposits and balances in on time. From our side, we prefer only having to correspond with one person from a group, rather than all 5 or 10. It's also easier for bank transfers etc. etc. Its only January, you've got months to get the group together!

Just a short blurb; we've extended our New Year's special until Jan. 15th. Get the balance of your trip payment in before then, and get 15% off the price! The best deal so far is the 22 day option which ends up at $145/day, cheaper than in 2006! Combine this with all the new facilities and services we're including this season, this is the best deal we've offered in years!

A lot happening this time of year. We've nailed down our pricing, schedule and Pre-New Years' specials for you. Here are the finer points:

1) We're reducing our capacity from 14 to 12. This means less people on the island, and less people to share waves with.

2) We are contracting a private ferry service once a week to transport our guests out and back much more comfortably and reliably than in previous years. KM. Debora has 20 air conditioned bunks, is almost 24m (80ft.) long and has all the important safety gear, GPS, Sat. Telephone, Radio, life jackets, etc. Photos will be available shortly. The ferry cost is included in the daily price of your holiday, and departs every week on Friday night.

4) Daily price is scaled on length of trip; 8 days = $200 US/Day, 15 days is $190 US/Day, and 22 or more days is $170 US/Day.

Hopefully you can see from the above that we are dedicated to adding value and service to your holiday. Our price has gone up significantly again, but we aren't going to apologize for it, because the facilities that we are offering, the service that our crew provides, and the new direct transport option still make WavePark the best value for money in the Mentawai Islands.

We are offering an early bird special for those of you that have your act together early enough to commit to a trip next season. Get your trip balance deposited with us by midnight of December 31st 2006, and you'll get 15% off the total $$!

Another season done and dusted. 2006 was a great season, thank you to all the guests and friends that made it happen and successful. To me, the season was highlighted by persistent comments from the guests about how good our crew is. It makes me proud to be part of the team that supports and runs the infrastructure that guests enjoy but sometimes don't notice during the course of their trip. Ja, Im, Deh, Eve, Gendut, Feri, Adi(s), Rado, Zal, Katy, Theo, Uncu, Rita, Pete, Lisa, Pam, and Tom all deserve credit. Each one of them has gone the extra mile at some point this year to help the guests and I make sense of the bewildering world of Indonesian logistics, supply chains, maintenance, transport, government relations, accounting, taxes, weather, engineering, cooking and shopping. Without any one of these people, WavePark wouldn't run as well as it does.

Overall it was a strange year weather-wise. May didn't appear until June, but June made up for that. In haltering puffs, the SSE wind kicked in by July, giving us the rest of the season with offshore Hideaways. It was a late season goofy footer's and pig-dog dream. Big swells in mid-August and late September scared even the veterans; highlights for me were 8-10ft. low tide Rifles, watching Mick Fanning dance with death over the single heaviest session I have ever seen at my favourite break. And finally our patience for Ebay paid off, 6-8ft. sets for a week, coupled with the right moon phase and the persistent SSE wind which made the daily surf spot choice a no brainer.

Thank you to all current and previous guests for spreading the word about us. We don't advertise aside from this website, and over 90% of our clientele comes from positive word of mouth and return guests. If you are a prior guest and enjoyed your stay, please remember to mention us and this website to your friends that you think would enjoy the experience as well.

I'm already looking forward to 2007, to help you get the best waves of your life while enjoying the best value for money surfing resort in the world.

Well, so much for that news episode. Jerry decided to leave us. It wasn't working out his family being on the mainland, and him on the island. We wish him the best of luck in whatever he decides to do next.

We're on the lookout for a professional chef for next season, so if you or anybody you know are great in the kitchen and want to surf a season at the WavePark, contact us. We don't pay much, but our chef will surf the best waves of his/her life, and go home with something in their pocket.

Latest news is Rhino's house is almost ready, photos on the way. Rhino, aka Mike, has built a sick 3 bedroom pad on the east coast of Mainuk, away from the hustle and bustle of WavePark central. He's planning on owning the first pool in the Mentawais, we can't wait to jump in! We are planning to provide it to families and small groups that don't want to join up with the regular WavePark clients, and want their own speedboat to the breaks. The service will cost a little bit more, but, like everything else that we put together, it will be good value for money.

We've also decked out all the bunk beds in the accommodation with fans. We had feedback from the first couple trips of the season (thanks for being the guinea pigs guys) that the upper bunks weren't getting enough air. We installed 6 new wall fans pointed directly at those suckers, so now the place to be is actually in the top bunks! All of this points to a better night's sleep between perfect waves.

Some great news to tell everybody. Jerry is back! Our faithful chef is coming back to cook all WavePark guests their favourite meals plus a handful of new ones made possible by Jerry's new kitchen and kitchen hands. We're really happy to have Jerry back on board.

The new Mentawai Tide Calendar 2006 is available in Padang from April onwards. Stop by our office in Padang: Jalan Juanda No. 21a, Warung Kopi Onank (Coffee Cafe) to get your free copy, or purchase one from whichever hotel you're staying at in the Padang area. We have the months listed here, if you want to download and printout the month that correponds with your trip, please feel free.

We've got the new ping pong stadium up and running this season as well, so make sure you bring your game when you come. We can always use more ping pong balls, but make sure you carry them on so they don't get smashed!