Finding Macaronis

After Bali was first put on the surfing map in the early 1970's the pioneers of Indonesian surfing slowly started peeling back the frontiers of the wave-rich nation. They ventured east and west along the archipelago to ride waves that had never been ridden before: Bill Boyum and Bob Laverty discovered Grajagan in 1973; Kevin Lovett, John Geisel and Peter Troy landed on Nias in 1975; Paul King layed the first tracks in Sumbawa during the mid-80's.

In each of these instances word quickly spread through the surfing world and surfers headed - first in trickles, then in swarms - to the new locations, each hoping to get their own slice of the magic. The hordes of subsequent surfers often pushing the original pioneers deeper into the remote regions of Indonesia to discover even more great waves.

However, every now and again an expedition didn't tip-toe into the dark but rather, took a giant leap into the unknown. The distance they leapt measured by how long it took other travellers to discover their footsteps.



In the following case, the pioneers were three young surfers from Sydney who set off to Indonesia in 1980. They surfed the Mentawai Islands a full ten years before Lance Knight - after whom Lance's Right was eponymously named - journeyed there. In truth, the time it took for others to discover the Mentawais says as much about the group's ability to keep their discovery quiet as it does their pioneering spirit.

In 1980 Chris Goodnow, Scott Wakefield and Tony Fitzpatrick were all twenty years old and up for a bit of adventure. They ended up being the first surfers to set foot in the best surfing region on the planet. And in Macaronis, were the first to ride what is one of the world's great lefthanders.

What part of Sydney were you all from?
I came from Hunters Hill and Chris was from Mosman. Scott was from Curl Curl I think.

How did you all know each other?
Chris is my cousin, and he hooked up with Scott from the beach. The trip was Chris' idea basically. He had the idea that people had been surfing at Nias and from looking at the map that there had to be waves down there [the Mentawais].

How did you go about getting out to the islands?
We flew from Sydney to Jakarta and on to Padang. From Padang we had to get permission from various authorities to go out there, because tourists just didn't go out there. That took a while because we were getting sent from department to department and Chris was the only one who spoke some Indonesian.

We got a ferry from Padang and stayed at a village on the lee-side of the islands. We had to try to convince someone to take us to the ocean side. It took several days and we had to go to every department again, the miltary department, the police, because no-one had seen surfing before and they didn't know what to do with us. They were like: "Where are you going? What are you doing".

Chris had some photos of surfing and he showed them: "This is what we are doing."

When you first found Macaronis did you know you were onto something special?
The first time we saw it it was a bit blown out so it didn't look that good. Then we came back and as soon as we pulled up into the bay it was looking really good.

How big was it?
Six foot. Overhead. I wasn't a very good surfer then so it was pretty heavy.

//STUART NETTLE
This is an excerpt of the interview with Tony Fitzpatrick. The rest of this interview, and more photos from the first surf trip to the Mentawais, appears in the September issue of Tracks. On sale from 30th July.