Soli Bailey, Indonesian hiatus, Simuelue

Soli Bailey spent two months in Indonesia this season and went deeper than the crowded line-ups of Desert Point and Lakey Peak. It’s been a productive year for the Byron Bay gent. He left long-time sponsor, Billabong for a fresh start at O’neill, won the ASP Australasian junior championship and his mature surfing is generating a lot of chatter. Check back next week for Soli’s exclusive edit with Stab by Kaius Potter featuring set-ups like this shot by Shane Fletcher. “We were surfing one of the usual breaks on the main island but made the trek to this outer island one arvo,” says Shane. “The rumour was it’d lost its forms since the tsunami in ’05 but we were stoked we got the little outboard out there. I swam my peli case in over the end of the reef which is a dumb closeout but we got in eventually and it didn’t seem like anyone actually lived on the island. It might not be the same as it used to but the boys still snuck some keepers out there. And no one around!”