Bruce Irons, Macaronis, Indonesia

“This is the most I’ve surfed in five years,” says Bruce, sitting in the lineup at the Mentawais’ most famous wave, Maccas. “I’ve got my fat ass back. Every time I don’t surf I get all scrawny. The more I surf, the more girth I get.” Bruce has spent a lot of time in the Mentawais – on this particular occasion, he’s aboard the Indies Trader IV for Red Bull’s Minor Threat trip. The surf program here has been led by surf enthusiasts Special K Andino, Ev Geiselman and Conner Coffin, all locking eight-plus hours a day. Bruce, the eldest on board, has slowly been catching up. This sequence is typical BI: the famous kicker drag pig-dog to roundhouse cutback. “I should’ve hit it higher on the rebound,” says Bruce, lamenting that since all the tsunamis and seismic shifts in the area, he thinks the wave has changed. “It definitely feels different to me. The reef got shallower, it’s faster and it’s more bowly. It doesn’t give you enough time to go out into the flats and let you do a swooping roundhouse. Before it seemed like the wave was a bit slower but still perfect.” And, what does he prefer? The new or the old? “Old,” he says. “It was just bubble gum wave, it was like a wavepool. Every single wave was breaking (now pointing with his index finger) right here.” For more of Ryan Miller’s awesome work, check out his site, over here.