INDONESIA: Dream Wave Discoveries In the World's Largest Tropical Archipelago

With the wet season starting, the rain persisted, sometimes refreshing and sometimes annoying us. We would catch as much rainwater as we could, since drinking the cool well water meant risking cholera. One night when I was asleep, dreaming vividly of a girl in Bangkok, the rain began pounding so heavily on the tin roofing that I awoke and suddenly and bolted from my bed to end up on the floor tangled in my mosquito net. The rain puts a fever into the young kids, who run laughing and screaming through the shallow pools like we used to run through the sprinklers on the front lawn during a hot summer’s day. One day while out surfing, it began raining so heavily that a one-foot-deep fog was thrown up from the splashing water. The sets moved in like rolling clouds, and the only place to hide from the rain was in the tube. With the rains, temperature about 70 degrees and the ocean about 85 degrees, we got off our boards and swam to stay warm

One morning after a surf, we made a two kilometer walk to a nearby village to replenish our supply of bananas. We were the center of attraction as we walked down the laid cut-stone street, flanked by our troop of kids each clinging to a corner of our clothing or one hand on each finger. Several beautiful, dark pairs of eyes were caught peering through the slats of wood, and would quickly duck away when seen. The very young kids would take one look and start screaming, while running for cover behind mama’s long dress. At the center of town in an obvious place were a couple of sacrificial stone tables carved by ancestors of these people several centuries ago. Before the missionaries came and had their red churches constructed on the top of the hills and tamed this violent society, human sacrifices and head hunting were practiced.

After securing a stock of bananas for 35 cents from a gentleman with a long knife, we leave when I noticed a boy with huge flying beetle tied into a piece of string and a bug flying around his head like a rubberband airplane. He offered it to me for a nickel and I gave him two bananas instead.

Since nothing lasts forever, the waves had to drop to two feet for several days. With the heat, boredom set in, as it was too hot to walk anywhere, too hot to sleep, and I’d been in the ocean for three swims by noon. As our visas were running out soon, but the full moon approaching, a decision had to be made about leaving. The wounds on my body were pleading my to stay out of the water for a few days so they could heal up. My stomach longed for good food, and my tongue cried for some ice cream, but I knew that once I was leaving here, I’d be regretting it. I wanted one more chance at the waves , and wit the full moon near, we had to stay.

As the moon enlarged, the weather few dark and the rain came down in torrents segmented by cracks of thunder. The palms were whipped and bent over near the point of breaking, and occasionally a set of coconuts would crash down on the tin roofing. The ocean was stained brown by the flooding river, and the waves were hopelessly unridable. That evening the wind quieted to a purr and the sky broke to reveal the full moon rising behind a curtain of palm trees. After an easy sleep that night, the morning presented us with a good seven-foot swell under overcast skies and a slight drizzle. The rain gave the water surface that texture so could feel your board through the turns. I stayed out till my arms were jellied, then let a wave wash me over the reef for the last time. As we walked back up the beach, looked over my shoulder through the mist of the shorebreak at another wave on the point that seemed blurringly surrealistic. I rubbed my eyes, then turned and started the short jog through the boonies.

A gentle budge opened my eyes to a pretty smile and the stewardess saying we were landing soon. I gazed glassy-eyed out the window at the palm-fringed beach passing under us; just another paradise. She asked if I had my customs form ready, and I reached in my pocket to pull out a transparent pink shell which I handed her. She looked at me, but I was looking out the widow again, wondering where I had been.