Watch: Five Minutes In The Mentawais With The Roxy Girls

What’s the hallmark of a successful surf trip? 

Waves would be the most obvious answer. 

If you’re lucky enough to spend two weeks’ vacation in some swell-rich corner, you’re hoping to return home with more tube time than the other 50 weeks combined. But that’s not always the case. 

The next best thing is good company. Which brings us to Sage Goldsbury, Coco Cairns, Suri Jabrik, and Coral Durant: four young ladies who surf very well, compete, model, work, travel, and live in the less-defined spaces of the surf industry.

They recently shared a room at Botik Resort in the Mentawais for 10 days, with access to a long list of the Ments’ best waves — Kandui, Rifles, Bank Vaults and beyond. Unfortunately, due to forces outside of their control, said waves never ignited. 

That left them with one another, a few fun-boards, and a couple dozen bikinis to try on. Things could be worse. Wade Carroll captured the moment with a Super 8 and a Handycam, and the result is a cool, grainy snapshot of the modern-day “Roxy Girl.”

Despite that title, these girls all come with different backgrounds and points of view. So we got their personal takes on a few themes of the trip (which by all accounts, was a success). 

Most memorable person you met on the trip:

Sage: “Getting to know Suri was really fun. I never really knew her before. I’d see her at events, but it’s not the same as spending that longer time with someone. She’s so much fun. I wish she lived back in Aus because she’s the coolest chick. There was also a bodyboarder that was staying at another camp, and was pretty much at all the same breaks we were surfing. He was a bit of a snake. We just had to give him a bit of attitude. No words. Coral dropped in on him one time, and then he got the message.”

Coco: “There were a couple guys in the water that always had something to say. But I wouldn’t say I think of them often… just old guys that weren’t super stoked when four girls would paddle out with stickers. But fair enough, I guess.”

Suri: “Wade, the videographer. I really enjoyed hanging out with him and getting to know him. He’s really funny. At the end of the trip, we all said that he was like one of the girls.”

Coral: “One of the photographers had a little daughter that was hanging out on the island. Her name was Noa. She was learning to walk and she took her first step while we were there.”

Biggest hiccup:

Sage: “It was my first time going to the Ments. I hadn’t really looked into our itinerary that much. And I didn’t realise it would take us three days to get there. We stayed in Jakarta one night, then Padang the next, and I had kind of thought… ‘well, it’s close because it’s Indo.’ It was kind of a shock.”

Coco: “On the way home, I got pretty seasick on the 4-hour ferry. I think we all took nausea tablets.”

Suri: “I brought two boards on the trip, and I broke both of them.”

Coral: “I rocked up a couple days later than the girls, and then a day or two into being there I hurt my neck and didn’t get to surf the whole time. It was brutal but such a good time with the girls, regardless. Lots of coconuts and Bintangs.”

Which one of you could survive the longest in the jungle if you got lost?

Sage: “Probably Coco. But then Coral, she’s kind of got a bit of that WA rawness to her, so maybe she could be really frothing on it.”

Coco: “I think Coral. She’s a pretty good fisherwoman. She grew up in West Aus at the Bluff with her brothers and sisters. I feel like she just has a lot of knowledge about the land. Or Suri, because she’s from Indonesia, so she probably knows things that we don’t.”

Suri: “I feel like Coco, because she’s very calm. She wouldn’t overthink, and she’d know exactly what to do. She’s very patient also.”

Coral: “Probably me. Just from where I grew up. It’s a rugged place in the desert of far-north WA.”

Best part about Indo, besides the surf:

Sage: “Just being out on the boat. Driving out in the morning, maybe as the sun is rising, and it’s just amazing. Then, listening to music on the boat. Everyone’s really quiet. I’ve been to the Ments again since that trip, and it was the same in that way. I feel like you just get time to ponder on the boat.”

Coco: “The locals. They’re super welcoming. They have so many tourists coming to their home, and they’re still always friendly.”

Suri: “I love how everywhere I go on these different surf trips, I always see someone I know. I get to speak in Indo with them, and talk about the crowd and the surf. It’s just nice because I feel like on these trips, there are a lot of Westerners, so when you see a local, it’s nice to be able to talk to them and get their inside.”

Coral: “I love the weather. It’s super warm, and the water’s so blue. Just the tropicalness of it.”

First thing you did when you got home?

Suri: “I looked back at all the clips and photos and everything that I took. I had post-trip blues, because it was so fun. A lot of the surf trips I go on are for competition, so it was nice to be able to do something other than that — just enjoy my time and be with the girls, rather than have that pressure of performing well.”

Coral: “Got an oat milk cappuccino.”