One Man Samoan Adventure Legend

At The Perfect Wave we love to relive our guests trips. To hear how epic their trip was, keeps our fire burning to get even more surfers onto their perfect wave. One such guest is Rob Hook, who just returned from an epic Samoa surf holiday. Words by Rob Hook

I had an amazing time in Samoa and got in six surfs from five days which surpassed my expectations. Swell started small and built up day by day, which was an ideal way to get used to Samoan waves. They’re definitely a little quicker than what I’m used to at home.

Saletoga Sands was a great resort, great staff, nice owners, and it was cool to see how the resort supported the local village, the staff really treated the place like they had a vested interest in the resort, which they sort of do.

The waves went from good, to very good and on my last morning we had four foot, light off shores and plenty of barrels. The real star of the show was Neil from Manoa Tours, my guide for the week. Neil’s originally from the Hawaiian islands and has lived in Samoa for almost 20 years. Hes a top man, a very handy surfer and was totally committed to putting us on the best waves at the right time each day and gave us plenty of tips and encouragement to help get used to the new breaks. I cannot speak highly enough of Neil, I would have had a completely different trip with any other guide on the island which I found out pretty quick when I started seeing others turning up as we were winding down after seeing the best of the conditions.

Neil explained to me the best time to surf in Samoa is always early, before the winds get up, and often in the late afternoon/evening the winds will drop off again. Five out of five mornings I was in Neil’s boat in pitch black and 10-15 minutes later I would be jumping out at first light into windless glass. The trade winds would kick in around 9/10am which gave us a good 2-3 hours of quality Samoa surf. Six people in the water was as busy as it ever got – I thought I would have to go somewhere way more remote to experience the quality of waves we had with no one out. I went out one afternoon when the winds dropped off, but otherwise it tended to blow during the day and drop away to nothing again for the following morning.

There was one spot we went to which was off shore in the trade winds, but most spots got messy as soon as the wind got up. Neil said he knew of plenty of people that had been to Samoa but didn’t rate it because they didn’t get up early to get the window. Most breaks are surf-able only on a high tide, so its important to pick a window where high tide is morning and evening which I happened to luck out with.

Samoa is a largely untapped gem, especially for someone like me who is a little older, short on time and wants to arrive and rely on quality local knowledgeable to go straight to the right place at the right time.

The one thing I would do differently next time would be to stay at Coconuts (where Neil is based) or Sinelai next door. I agree Saletoga is great value, but taking into account the cost of hiring a car and a 40 minute drive each way to get to the boat at Coconuts, I would happily pay more on accommodation to avoid the drive and save the cost of car hire. Neil said the majority of the best surfing was all on the southern coast and all easily accessible by boat from Coconuts. When the north was working he had another boat on a trailer and I would have caught a ride with him, so probably no need to hire a car if you’re there primarily to surf with Neil and staying at Coconuts. Driving especially in the dark wasn’t alot of fun with lots of dogs and pigs running around. One Aussie guy staying at Saletoga I surfed with one day hit a pig which ran out of no where across the road and put a real downer on his trip.

On this trip I was on my own, but next time I’ll be with my family and the ideal set up for me is surf early, back to the resort mid morning, spend the day with the family and sneak in the odd arvo session. Samoa is perfect for that. It’s an easy flight and I enjoyed the island, the people, the culture, and all the other sights and sounds. It’s a fantastic place for a family holiday with a very high chance of quality uncrowded surf. Me personally, I’ll take that over fighting it out in Fiji or Indonesia.

I have a friend who stayed at one of the surf camps and he got some pretty good conditions, but was really only able to access the one break near the camp. Pete from Island Holidays mainly seems to push the surf camp and they are great I’m sure, but surfing with Neil is way more tailored experience. I have plenty of friends who are in the same boat as me, work and family commitments make carving out time for surfing tough and when you get away to surf you won’t have time to research the breaks and monitor the forecast- you want local knowledge you can rely on.

I was half expecting someone with limited knowledge of surfing to be driving me out to the same spot each day at maybe the wrong time of day or tide and I would be relying on a bit of blind luck to see any real quality. That was definitely not the case!

Neil was awesome, don’t know what else I can say other than the family and I are already planning a trip to Samoa next year. I also went on a snorkelling trip with Neil which was great and next time I’ll be sure to take in one or two of the hikes he guides up into the hills as well. He’s a one man Samoan Adventure Legend!