TRAVIS POTTER:
12 Years on the Road, SURFER Finally Found Him

A wetsuit in Indo? If you've sewn yourself up after a few run-ins with the reef a wetsuit can become your best friend, despite the sweltering heat

At first, but I guess I just had to explain to them that I wasn’t some businessman. They really wanted me to work in an office and have stability and this and that, but I’ve grown on them and they’ve grown on me, and we’ve come to like each other a lot.

Since 9/11 a lot of Americans have been pretty paranoid about traveling, especially in Muslim countries. In your experiences, do you think there’s any validity to these fears.
Not in Indo. It’s all propaganda. Since 9/11 I’ve had one run in with somebody that I thought was really negative. He never said anything to me, it was just the way he was staring at me. But that was the only incident. At 3:00 a.m., I’ll walk anywhere in this country and feel totally safe and comfortable, but there are places in the States that you wouldn’t catch me dead walking around at that hour, downtown Long Beach or somewhere like that.

Does that mean your long-term plan is to put some money down on some land and live in Indo with a perfect wave right out your front door?
No, you get sick of it over here. Lack of intelligent English conversation, the weather, and I really love California, especially my hometown. I never want to miss that portion in the winter where, maybe for an eight-day period, it gets world-class. I’ve haven’t missed it yet, and I don’t intend to. I haven’t spent a summer in California in maybe seven years, but I go back home for the winter. Plus, it’s a good time to work because it’s not too hot.

You must have had some pretty close calls from time to time. Does anything in particular stand out?
There have been close calls, just getting cut up and bruised and banged up, and Timmy [Turner]and Brett [Schwartz] both slammed on their ribs on the same day, and I think I hit my hip the next day and we were all out of the water, but we’ve all been super lucky. We’ve never had malaria. And I’ve definitely gotten better at bringing the right stuff in case of an emergency. I’ve learned my lesson by hitting the reef so many times that there are some spots I always wear booties and a full suit every time I surf because it’s not worth getting cut up if you’re here for a long time. Timmy’s sewn me up a couple of times and I let Brett give me a stitch, but I’d rather do it myself if I can.

You guys have obviously polished your act, what are some of the basic things you’ve learned through the years about travel attitudes?
One of the main attractions of Indonesia is that it’s almost as if the more spontaneous you are, the more everything falls into place. It’s like the less prepared you are the more things tend to just step-by-step fall into place one after the other. So it’s like people that come over here follow that lifestyle and it works. There was a couple that came across from Australia on a 14-foot catamaran with a tent across it. They had nothing. And the worst could happen to them, the absolute worst—lost at sea on a catamaran floating to India or something. But they came out all right. We were out on a fishing boat and they pulled up on that. For us the fishing boats are a really good way to travel. Most fishermen realize that the waves are going to break in the same place but at the same time most Indonesians are terrified of the ocean. Very few can swim. Even a lot of fishermen can’t swim. Someone once told me that the reason they don’t learn how to swim is so that they’ll drown faster. The idea is that if you know how to swim and your boat sinks you’re going to suffer, you’re going to doggy paddle until you drown.

While it's the unimpeded, extended tube time of Indonesia's furthest frontiers that beckons to Potter and his friends, He still hasn't missed a winter at home in Seal Beach to this day