An Unrelenting Tube Piggie Of The Highest Order, Travis Potter

The year is 2001. The surf industry is booming. Big named brands and mags are flexing thick pockets on luxury boat trips.The Indonesian atolls are yet to be mapped out and surf travel has ostensibly gone soft. 

Then, Travis Potter, Timmy Turner, and Brent Schwartz took multiple month-long trips to West Java, where they slept on the beach, and attempted to live off the land. They documented their journey. 

The resulting film, “Second Thoughts” would be acclaimed the greatest adventure surf film since Bruce Brown’s Endless Summer. On it, they surfed the best waves of their lives and nearly lost their minds…

Here we catch up with Travis Potter who, as Mikala Jones puts it, is idolized in the underground tube hound world. Mr. Potter has an Indonesian love affair; he knows the secrets, the nooks and crannies. If you’re with Travis you don’t need to know where the waves are, he knows what’s around that corner, what swell angle is going to tickle which remote destination in the just the right way. And, he’s worked for it. 

You don’t spend month-long trips, fishing, hunting, and bartering your way into heaving tubes with no one around without sacrifices. Without major sponsor backing, you work your nine-to-five, lay tile, do fishing charters in order to score untouched, and sometimes unmapped waves with you and a good friend. 

It takes effort, and Travis is one of the most well-barreled gents in surfing who you may have never heard of. Today, he has his Captian’s license. He’s working on a 5 million dollar yacht in Newport Harbor. And, frankly, he’s an example of a life well-tubed and therefore, well-lived. 

Hit play for O’Riginals starring Travis Potter with commentary by Second Thoughts filmmaker, Timmy Turner and good friend/POV master and barrel fiend, Mikala Jones.