June 24th 2025: Denial

While our adventure exploring the Mentawai Islands in the Indian Ocean may have taken 14 days, the actual immersion in this dreamy world lasts a lot longer for me. That's especially true when each of those days is a standout for photography. I end up with hard drives full of moments that need to be waded through and the very best pulled out to see the light of day. That can take weeks. Sometimes months. I actually love that part – it allows me to live fully in denial that I have returned to the cold reality of home.

For this week's edition I went deep into a part of the Mentawai Islands that I had never been to before. To give you an idea – where we went doesn't even appear on the carvings that the local villagers make for us. We were a full day's sail from the nearest inhabited island. The fish were bigger, more of them, the reefs churning with life and wild currents – the fingerprints of a new swell – hauntingly beautiful. 

None of the waves have names down here. The early Mentawai explorers quickly learnt that when you give a wave a name it evokes a sheep mentality from humans – the wave ends up on bucket lists and other abhorrent constructs of human nature. Even surfers can be greedy people. So no names for the waves ... and it feels liberating to relinquish yourself from the burden of names. The waves tend to blur into each other and life is pared right back to living in the moment and surfing the wave in front of you. The past and the future bear little significance when you're living completely in the present. 

We surfed lefts and rights, frightening and fun, waves that could have been in Tahiti and waves that broke with so much force they sent shockwaves through nearby lineups (that was the first time I had seen that). 

We saw a fishing boat one day and it was a big deal. They were a bunch of Indonesian fishermen exploring the extent of their range. They looked equally as surprised to see us. We may have been there for different reasons but there was a shared respect for each other. 

I want to say a huge thanks to the whole team at Sumatran Surfariis for delivering my third trip and once again smashing it right out of the park for us all. Can't wait to get back there.

See you at the beach, Derek

PS This week I am escaping the wintery south to document the beginning of a pretty amazing journey being undertaken by a couple of long-time friends, Huw Kingston and Laurence Mote. Huw is an Australian adventurer with a penchant for masochistic challenges. For this chapter, he's roped in Laurence, a seasoned cyclist who nearly lost his life when he suffered an anaphylactic reaction to a bee sting back in 2013. Thankfully, Laurence survived but was left legally blind. That makes their 4000km self-propelled bike journey, via every ski field in Aotearoa, even more remarkable. And it's all to raise awareness about the impacts of climate change on our Pacific neighbours, and to raise funds to build a climate resilient shipping container classroom in Vanuatu. You can read the full story here on the Save The Children website.