February Surf Trip with Manly Surf School and Huey Surf Charter

by Jamie Gray

Last month Werris (Matt Grainger) from Manly Surf School came to see me about doing a mission to the Ments for an episode of his TV show, Manly Surf. He wanted to go and see how the one of his favourite places in the world was doing after the 2010 Tsunami that took out many villages and killed hundreds of people. We chatted and decided it would be great to go over and help out one of the villages and see what we could do to help. My reply was great idea and I am in, lets go. So after some serious last minute organization as there was swell arriving as well, we moved heaven and earth and got all the arrangements sorted for a mission to Indo. The Mission included a camera crew of three including Dan the Man (Cameraman), Toastie the comedy act (Soundman) & BA the Brains (Producer). We Werris’s and three of his instructors from Manly Surf, Undies (Rob Underwood), Frimmy (David Frimm) & Nickoli (Nick James) along for the trip. Representing The Perfect Wave we had myself and BT, our European Partner and Global BDP.  So we had an all star cast for a mission to the Ments all we needed now was a boat???

My first call was always going to be to good friend, legend and all round great guy Sooly from The Huey. With a few shakes of a lamps tail, Sooly was in like Flynn and making the preparations to get the boat ready for departure. As I was in Europe and on a very different time zone, my awesome team back in the office made it all happen in only 4 days, with flights booked, insurance issued and plans confirmed to get the crew to Padang on time for departure. To organize 10 surfers for a trip to Indo in less than a week, is not an easy task but TPW team did it nearly effortlessly.

The crew arrive in to Padang from all over the world and are greeted by TPW Padang representative Ayen, who shows the crew around Padang for the day. A lot of footage was shot and you will need to wait for the episode release to see what we got up to. With our Captain and Chief, Sooly, I set off to organize the equipment required to install a water system / catchment and tanks for the village of ready to get the boys out to the Islands, we boarded one of the best charter boats in Indo and set motor overnight to Paradise. The crossing was so calm the crew slept like babies to wake up to perfect 3 ft Burgers with only the Tengirri for company.

What followed was a week of Perfect Indo waves at HT’s, Macaronis, Burgers, Lances, Left, Bintangs & Gun Barrels with pretty much ourselves for company. Don’t take my word for it, check out the photos as proof.

Jamie Gray – The Perfect Wave director