Jono Shade, Nokanduis

While our vessel’s captain, Jono Shade threaded bombs like this on day one of our super grom trip, about 40 meters away a couple hundred thousand dollars of junior talent bobbed on the shoulder. Jack Robinson, 12, Ian Gentil, 14, and Caio Ibelli, 16, barely rode a wave during the session. It had been six foot on the sets and, as 17-year-old Conner Coffin noted, “when you paddled into them the wall looked like it went halfway into the channel.”

Nokanduis is a treacherous wave, requiring the surfer to take off, bottom turn around a tapering tube section before the thing canons a several second pipe down the line. It will spit you out with just enough time for you to reset your line, kick off some speed and then attempt to thread the final phase over a near-dry end section. To make a wave out here when it’s solid you’re gonna have to surf one of the waves of your life. For the natural footer, who is on his/her backhand, as all our team was, the task is made all the more difficult.

Jono said despite this being his third year captaining in the Mentawais this was only the second time he’d ever surfed the wave because his guests “never wanted to go there.” His first session at Nokanduis had seen him “get pretty demolished.” On the first wave one of our team caught at Nokanduis, Conner Coffin ditched in the tube and perforated his eardrum. He would admit later it was an uncharacteristic move.

Similarly odd was watching a team with easily the technical ability to surf the wave refuse to take off. They’d all surfed heavier in the past, only in more familiar surroundings. That they failed while punters like our captain (well, sorta. Guy was a sponsored junior surfer) thrived suggested that they were at a stage in their development where confidence could only be earned through familiarity. Something that puts the performances of say, a 15-year-old Owen Wright at Pipe in perspective. – Jed Smith