Mentai 04-02

Macaroni's

Macaroni's has got to be my favorite surf spot in the Island Chain, with it's perfectly formed reef it's just about as good as a performance wave you can get. The takeoff has got a clean entry with a crisp jackup in the face making for the kind of takeoff that's perfect for a quick tube section right off the bat. The face is always totally vertical with out any flat spots, and the bottom of the wave is always nice and flat making it perfect for verticle lip smacks, or setting up the tube. The beauty of this wave is that it just keeps going like a machine, and after coming off a verticle smack, kit's just there again asking for another, and another.
The drawback of this spot is that when the swell is big, Maccr's is usually much smaller than exposed breaks. This can be a benifit for those big out of control swells as the wave usually can hold it. Make no mistake however because on these days Maccr's shows it's teeth, and starts to look like a different wave.

As I mentioned before we were plagued with Southeast winds which can limit the number of ride able spots in the chain, so naturally every charter in the Chain was right on our heels. We had left Thunders because of the crowd, and that's usually an un crowded spot, but we were headed to a way more popular break (Macaroni's) . The journey north takes about 5 hours, and about half way up we were overtaken by one of the charters from Thunders, (not a good sign).
By this time I'm getting a little sour on all the Boat Wars that were going on. I was already forced to shoot on several occasions rather than surf, and all I wanted was to get a soul session somewhere with out allot of people buzzing around me..Macaroni's was not going to be that place!

When we arrived at the break the gloom of the clouds mixed in with the onshore winds really made it for me. I was about to go completely mad when another charter appeared on the horizon. This brought the boat count to 5 including us.....great ....onshore winds... blown out waves.....50 some odd surfers, cloudy miserable drizzle, what's not to love! ..(Bintang Time).

The next day things started to change, the swell had come up a little, and the winds hadn't come up yet and there actually was some surf. There was a total frenzy on our boat as the Barns were looking for there helmets, and sun block determined to be the first ones in the water along with every other surfer, on ever other boat. Within minutes the early morning lineup was littered with bodies scrambling for every ripple coming into the bay. Again I opted to wait it out and have some breakfast.

That day I ended waiting for about 4-5 hours before the glutinous pigs who were clueless to the whole rotation of surfers, and taking turns thing, came in. The wind started up, and myself and some of the Tazi boys from the camp, (along with some of the crew), enjoyed some semi-decent waves with just a few of us out. Even though it wasn't the best surf of the day, it had to be the best session of the day.
Satisfied that I had dodged the mayhem of the crowd, my friend and I decided to get away from the barns by going fishing...another mistake, and another story.

That night I was at the end of my rope, I was imagining how many more boats would be there the next day, and how much smaller the swell would be. I literally was about to postal on somebody when the next day something crazy happened.
I woke up and looked out the window and all the boats were gone! The lagoon where we were anchord was empty, and the lineup was barren of any dingy's or surfers. I couldn't believe my eyes, and too boot, the swell had come up and the winds had gone flat. Just as I had seen this amazing site I heard the diesel engines of the boat start, and the sound of the anchor coming up. Everyone was in good spirits as we really thought for that brief period that we were to get it to ourselves. We headed out to the reef to anchor, breakfast was on the table, helmets were flying, sun block was squirting, and the barns were scrambling around like chickens with their heads cut off.
It all came to a final climax when the first dingy out got to the reef, a 100' charter boat which carries 20 paying guests and 10 crew came sailing around the point and into the bay, anchoring not only right next to us, but blocking our vision of the reef.
Guess what ? it was a boat load of pro, and want-to-be pro surfers, photographers, videographers, ect ect. We were so not Stoked!..I of coarse being the optimist expected this, but everyone else was truly bummed. I started laughing hysterically before being sedated, while the rest of the crew just proceeded to go out anyway.
Funny thing was that all these guys were rippers, and even though they got lots of waves, were like the Aussie pro's at Thunders, in that they were very courteous, and respectful. Their buddies the photographers were very comical too, telling me that I couldn't film their surfers...that really tickled my funny bone.

That day and the next were great surf days with the swell going up, and down a little, conditions going from glass in the morning to windy afternoons. Me filming when the light was good, and surfing when it wasn't. And all in all averaging out to be an ok ending to what was almost a for sure meltdown.
The galleries for these days are quite large, please take you time and enjoy the images, as there are some good ones.

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