Words Janni Hönscheid | Surfers: TPW Mermaids Janni Hönscheid & Sylvi Bodi | photos by Simon Williams – Swilly (follow Swilly on Facebook and Instagram)

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The great thing about spending 14 days in one spot such as P-Pass is that, other than the wave, you will also get to experience a real feel for the place…

You will see more then what meets the eye, go higher, stay longer, get stronger, go deeper… and eventually in the depths you will find others who will be on that same wave length as you. These last few days have been all about exploring. Pure wanderlust. Wake up in the morning to the sound of the ocean and have absolutely no expectations… going with the flow and taking each moment as it comes. Spontaneously swimming in our mermaid tails after a long surf session and having salt on our skin all day. One fun wave after the other… big smiles on our faces, fresh tuna on our plates.

One day we were so surfed out that we felt like doing something different, so we set off on our little boat, heading to a magical place: Nan Madol. The technical description: it’s a ruined city that was the capital of the Saudeleur Dynasty until about 1628, and it’s remains are the only standing monument of a civilization built entirely over open water, on a coral reef. The ruins are built of 750,000 tons of black basaltic rock, and very mysterious as, to this day, nobody knows how they brought the columns there back then… if you ask the locals they believe through levitation.

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My personal description: it’s one of these places that makes you speechless and gives you chills. Its beauty is indescribable and you could spend hours just wandering around these huge, heavy rocks, feeling their energy, and just making your mind at peace with the fact that there are things on this planet that we just will never be able to explain…

On the way to Nan Madol we passed some cute tiny little islands that were home to some local families. The dad would be fishing, taking responsibility and getting the food for his beloved ones, the mum would be hanging up the washing on a little palm tree while she kept a watching eye over her kids playing and laughing in the water with a little tree branch. They even had a dog on this tiny island -barking happily as we drove past- which pointed their attention to us and they all stopped what they were doing just to friendly wave over to us, strangers.

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To finish our day and see off the sun, we drove over to the mountain across the adorable Mangrove Bay Hotel, heading to the Sokehs rock, which is one of the signature elements of this paradisiac place.

And again, we got hit by history and mad energies as, hiding in the depths of the humid and dense vegetation, they were some canons and bunkers from the Second World War… our imagination and feelings would go back in time for a second, watching our surrounding and thinking about what it must have been like for the people back then, fighting for their lives… but then, watching the canons from a different perspective, you could see pink & purple flowers blossoming out of the cracks, bringing you back to the present moment.

Without history, there would be no future. On our way down, we were sharing a local beer and already picturing a new day as we saw the moon coming up in the distance, a new day of waves & wanderlust, a new day of pure life!

Written by:
Ben Horvath

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