CLAIMING COMOROS
A Trip to Moustali's Island

Who says there aren't any perfect unridden waves in Africa? Well, here's one less.

Unfortunately, European colonialism arrived in this remote corner of the Indian Ocean, and after the French left and the Comoros finally gained their independent status, the islands incurred heavy decades of typical post independence political and civil unrest.

We got a first hand report of those turbulent years by our guide, Moustali, a guy who’s been deeply involved in the fights and at times has reportedly served as lieutenant for the mercenaries’ troops that were behind every coup. The guy knows the island and its inhabitants like the back of his hands, and seems to be the most popular person around as he’s greeted and granted like a local legend in each village we drive through. He’s smart, knows what we’re looking for, and he knows every single beach access in the whole island; Moustali’s definitely the guy you want to be friend with around here.

Riding in the back of the mandatory Toyota truck I was amazed as soon as we reach the exposed side of the island, and after four days of travel we finally saw the comforting sight of breaking waves on both sides of every reef pass we spot in the distance. Even if the trade winds were slightly side shore on most of the passes, it’s easy to predict some serious, if not world class, potential out there. Unfortunately for the first few days, all the elements didn’t quite fall in our favor: extreme tides, funky trade winds and a mixed swell let us wandering if this place ever gets good, a situation Randy, who’s a veteran surf traveler, perfectly summed up as, “the island of if ”.

Not that we didn’t get some fun sessions at the different setups we surfed along the coast, but the potential that the place occasionally displays definitely left us starving for more. The island offers all kind of setups from outer reef passes to punchy beachbreaks, with long pointbreaks and a couple of slabs thrown in the mix, but the conditions never get quite perfect. To our delight, that was about to change in a matter of days: right when we thought we’d seen it all and called it the “If” trip, the lucky stars finally align. After a few days of deep on-field research we have the place dialed, so that when conditions got good, not one day passed by that we didn’t nail at least one good session. The icing on the cake, however, came at the very end of the trip right when we headed back to pack our stuff after a disappointing last session at a beach break on the east side. Driving past an elusive left point that had been fooling us for the whole trip, we couldn’t help but notice long glassy walls wedging and gaining size and momentum as they peel around a headland and into a placid bay.

Once again, conditions were perfect and we happily traded waves ‘til dusk enjoying every second of this last, and unexpected, session at the aptly named Moustali’s left. The island finally revealed itself: she didn’t want to let us down and leave us with a sour taste in our mouths. She chose to let us leave with the sweet scent of the Ilang Ilang flower trailing in our dust and big smiles on our faces.