Surfing’s last frontier
Perfect PNG waves, no crowds
The last time I was in Indonesia, I was on a surf charter boat in the Mentawis, searching hard for my perfect wave.
As boatloads of surfers from every corner of the globe arrived at each line-up, I found that most of them didn’t even attempt to show they understood any of the etiquette of surfing.
Wave-crazed surfers paddled inside me with an aggression that unnerved me, and even when I found my own wave, another surfer was just as likely to cut into it, sometimes sending me to the shallow reef below to avoid a collision.
It made me question the state of surfing in the modern world. It made me wonder what the early pioneers of surfing might make of this sorry state of events.
So, it’s as much a sense of relief, than anything else, that overcomes me as I paddle into my very first Papua New Guinea surfing line-up. There are no other surfers here. The skipper of the surf charter boat I’m on says that in 12 years of coming here, he’s never seen another surfer in the line-up. And his boat, PNG Explorer, is believed to be the only surf charter vessel in the country (incredible when you consider there’s over 50 in the Mentawis).
I’ve flown to Kavieng in PNG’s far north-eastern reaches, via Port Moresby. From here, we’ve motored
As the sun sets against a coastline of coconut trees I ride perfect head-high waves until my arms can barely get me back to the tender; then I climb the ladder and grab a cold beer.
westward overnight, along the New Ireland coastline to New Hanover. At dawn, I wake and find myself – with freshbrewed coffee in hand – in a pristine bay surrounded by tiny islets and coconut trees.
Local villagers paddle past in flimsy wooden canoes, while tiny children play in the dazzling blue waters beside the boat.
Surf guide Chris Peel tells me I have three choices of waves in this bay. All of them, he says, are on a par with the waves I’ll find a little further west in Indonesia.
PNG is surfing’s very last frontier. It’s as if the modern world hasn’t touched this part of the country.
Territorial locals rule the waves in so many other countries, but here the only locals I share waves with are tiny children on old surfboards left behind by surfers on previous visits of the PNG Explorer.
The kids take great delight in sharing their waves with us, often high-fiving us when we make it to the end of our rides.
PNG Explorer owner and skipper Andrew Rigby stumbled upon these waves by chance. Hailing from Victoria, in Australia, he was here catching crayfish for live trade when he realised the potential of the waves on offer all around him; many of which had never been surfed. He leased his father’s crayfish boat and started surf charters out of Kavieng. “I used to take time off from catching lobsters to go find waves, and just about everywhere I looked I’d find perfect empty waves,” he says. “I knew there’d be plenty of hard work ahead but I wanted to make a business around surfing those waves and sharing them with other surfers. I still love doing it every day.” Each dawn on the PNG Explorer, we gather on the back deck of the refitted crayfish trawler and discuss wave options over lattes (there are plenty of luxuries on board, including freshly caught crayfish). On my first morning, I’m one of only two surfers who want to surf a gentle-breaking, perfect right-hand reef break. I’m taken by tender, and then dropped a few metres from the waves, where I paddle over perfectly transparent waters to the point of the bay.
Endless waves peel off one after another. The only company I have is a canoe that paddles past 100 metres further out to sea, the fisherman in it looking at me with great curiosity.
When I’m done riding, I paddle back to the tender anchored nearby and make it to the boat in time for a two-course breakfast. In the middle of the day I fish from the tender – a canopy blocking the severe noon sunshine – and watch marlin jump nearby while spinner dolphins ride the bow waves of the boat. But it’s the late afternoon surfs I really look forward to most. It’s when the water’s dead-still as the afternoon trade wind dies off. As the sun sets against a coastline of coconut trees I ride perfect, head-high waves until my arms can barely get me back to the tender; then I climb the ladder and grab a cold beer from the Esky and watch my fellow surfers ride their last waves as the first stars come out for the night.
Then we motor back to the PNG Explorer in time for fresh sashimi on the back deck as the moon rises.
When the swell drops, we steam north to an island called Emirau. There’s no airport on the island, and with the exception of an Australian lobster exporter who worked here in the 1980s – and the occasional visiting doctor – the island won’t see any foreigners outside those on our vessel.
We pull in to a protected passage between tiny islands, anchoring in clear, blue waters. A small community lives on the beach where we’ve anchored. Five children paddle out to greet us, the youngest balances in the front of the canoe, watched over by his older siblings. Some days we hand them fish we have caught in exchange for coconuts they pick from the trees that line the shore.
When we return to my favourite bay on the north coast of New Hanover to surf a fast-rising swell, the local villagers put on a sing-sing. All the local villages come together to perform local songs and dances.
On our voyage back to Kavieng, we snorkel above Japanese World War 2 plane wrecks, and we steam close to the coast, watching the mountains roll on in an hinterland that’s as wild and forbidding as any on this earth. There’s no other boats around, nor are there any hotels. If this was anywhere else on this planet, surfers would have discovered this surf paradise en masse and made their mark – opening surf camps and licensing surf-charter businesses.