Despite the pressure from the crew for me to go as a guide, I was still kind of in doubt in going or not together with them as I only had a little over 2 weeks in Bali before going back to Brasil and had plenty of things to do, silver orders to take care , etc…If I went on the trip, upon my return I would have only 5 days to organize my things and it wasn’t little…

After the whole crew arrive in Bali a few days before the trip everyone checked in at the dewa Bharata hotel where I lived on the season 2009 and after a few nights out at Kuta the “elite squad” became famous and it was easy to see that this crew was “pure energy”…The group was formed…Alê, Paulão, the professor black belt Thiago “Negão” also from Roots and student of Paulão, the MMA fighter Marcinho “Marciano” of Gracie Barra and Thiago “Dentist” also of Roots besides Dudu, Limão, Papagaio and I closing the team of the 9 knights of Apocalypse or the “9 goofies and a destiny” as the group became known after we realized we were all goofies on the boat. A team of super cool guys together and a trip with amazing vibes trough the Mentawaii islands…any doubts I might have had disappear, I was going on this trip and what was better, I was going as a surf guide, my second experience working as a guide troughout the Mentawaii islands…the crew got stoked when they heard about my decision and to don’t loose the habit the celebration was at the Sky Garden again.

On the night before our departure we heard that the biggest earthquake recently had destroyed the city of Padang where we would fly to and where our boat would live from…the situation was really serious but many preferred to think about that later as there was still another night left of adventures at the Kuta circus…on the morning of the following day at the time scheduled, at 5:00 am, some member of the group hadn’t yet arrived or where arriving straight from the night…for just a little detail 2 members of our group didn’t get left behind and the majority of the zombies kept going towards the airport without loosing any minute.

When we entered the plane a bit of charm with the stewardess and “voila”…business class to the more wise…After a stopover at the Jakarta airport where we “took over” a vip room and found out trough the internet that the city of Padang was completely destroyed, we finally took our plane and arrived at Padang at the worse day possible. Upon our arrival we saw many planes from other governments that brought medical supplies and food and army trucks that were moving non stop inside the airport.

The city was at dark without electricity, there were many people homeless at the airport fresh arrived and without a place to live because of the destruction caused by the tragedy, the queues at the petrol station (working with private generators) were simply absurd…honestly, it looked like a scene of a movie of a city postwar. We found out through the boat owner that the food shop that usually supplies the boat had been completely destroyed and collapsed to the floor during the quake and because of that we would have to spend the night anchored in the harbor while he tried to get the rest of our food and supplies in other places. On the following day we had the opportunity of having a close look with our own eyes on the destruction caused by an earthquake of this magnitude. What we saw was simply shocking…the power of nature had really showed how small we really are. Houses, hotels, buildings and every type of construction destroyed completely or partially. Many people missing, homeless and bodies being recovered from the places collapsed all the time. The city of Padang had just suffered one of the worst tragedies of its history and ironically we were a group of surfers looking for fun. We even tried to offer voluntary help but it was clear that the best we could do was to not cancel our trip as now more than ever the boat owner, his crew and theur families needed all the money they could get to restart their lives. And so we spent the day taking pictures of collapsed buildings and houses, watching rescues and waiting for news about our supplies, which later was confirmed and finally we guaranteed departure for that night.

Finally we were going to leave to the Mentawaii; We had our first dinner onboard and at around 21:00 we pulled the anchor and start moving towards the Mentawaii islands…the adventure had begun…

Our first stop to surf on the following day was at Scarecrows were we broke the ice with small lefts and a bit bumpy. From there we moved to Lances Left and upon arrival everyone could feel why the Mentawaii are the most wanted surfing destiny for surf trips in the world nowadays. Small and perfect waves at few dozen yards from the boat, blue sky, empty clean beach covered with palm trees as a background and a light breeze offshore made everyone smile nonstop at every set that would break and peel over the reef. We surfed till we couldn’t take it any longer under the super hot Equator sun and went back to the boat to have lunch watching empty sets through the boat windows during lunch. We stayed at Lances surfing small, hollow and perfect lefts until dark with only a few other older Aussie surfers from another boat and after we kept going to spend the night anchored at a protected bay and take off the following morning to Macaronis.

We arrived at Maccas the following day with sideshore winds and bad weather so we took some time off to check out the resort and get the latest swell forecast from the net. Based on what we saw we decided to keep going to Thunders and on the following day we were blessed with perfect and barreling 4 to 5 feet waves with a light offshore breeze during the whole day and a surreal scene during sunset that looked more like a painting. We stayed at Thunders for 3 days dividing the spot with 2 other boats while the surf didn’t stop pumping and we had epic sessions with perfect and tubular waves that reached the 6 feet mark on the biggest day. There was specially one single session when the other boats had left and when we woke up we realized that we were the only boat anchored right in front of the wave that was breaking with 5 to 6 feet perfect and with no one…we surfed alone the whole day. Perfect waves, long smooth and blue walls of 5 to 6 feet without a drop out of place with a light breeze offshore that was producing barrels and many turns in front of a tropical island paradisiacal with a white sand beach and full of palm trees, blue sky without a single cloud, warm tropical water and a wide channel to paddle back out to the line up without getting your hair wet. On this day we lived what without a doubt is the golden dream of every surfer in the planet…we laughed non stop of how lucky we were and we stayed out in the water until we didn’t have any more energy to paddle…the sunset was simply magical and we ended the best day of our trip at the best “Mentawaii Style”