Ian Gentil, Conner Coffin and Caio Ibelli (asleep), Jakarta

“Have you seen Caio?,” asks 17-year-old, Santa Barbra pro, Conner Coffin.

“He wasn’t on our flight.”

Three of the world’s best groms, a photographer, Stab writer and filmmaker are in Jakarta international airport waiting to board a flight to Padang in 30 minutes for a 10-day boat trip. But we’re down a surfer – 16-year-old Brazilian, Caio Ibelli. It’s a problem for a number of reasons. The most pressing of which is that he, unlike the other three kids, is without a chaperone and speaks less than rudimentary English let alone Indonesian.

In a snapshot of the Brazilian mentality, Caio and his manager were happy for him to be dispatched solo from Sao Paulo to Jakarta for the trip and the possibility of international exposure. Right now, that impressive show of commitment looks like it’s gonna land Caio in a dilly of a pickle.

A plan is hatched to find him. Ian Gentil, 14, whose heritage is half Hawaiian, half Brazilian, speaks patchy Portuguese. I organise him to put an announcement over the P.A system telling Caio to find the nearest security guard.

“That’s gonna be a bit weird,” he says of having to make the announcement at Jakarta international airport. He’s right but options are limited.

The mood among the groms is jovial. They guffaw at the prospect of Caio being stuck in a strange country without a guardian and unable to communicate his dilemma. Other people’s misfortune, when not life-threatening, is always amusing.

Before we get a chance to make the announcement a Garuda Airways official approaches us and mimes the motion of a man wearing earmuffs.

Yes! Yes! Earmuffs. The trademark of the travelling pro surfer. Go on!

He points to a bench around the corner. There is Caio, asleep. I push him. Then push him again. Nothing. Ian and Conner pose for a photo beside him.

“I fly for three days,” Caio tells me later. Also saying he’d missed his first flight to Jakarta due to a passport bungle.