‘I Thought He Was Gonna Grab A Machete… Then He Picked Up A Rock’

There’s no shortage of good waves in rough locations. In fact, finding uncrowded waves now quite often entails trading luxury for lower standards of living. Surf tourism over time, has the habit of creating its own ecosystems of businesses that do their best to shelter aliens from a place’s rough edges – Lakey Peak is no exception, it’s very possible that you come and go completely undisturbed. 

It’s also very possible that’s not the case.

Vans Stab High presented by Monster Energy this year was not without its fair share of putting out fires (Thank you, Nate Lawrence) in a remote corner of Indonesian jungle. Being a top-level surfer won’t lend you much help (Speaking Indo might). Something we, as well as 2x Stab Surfer Of The Year (juniors) and Microdose star, Jai Glindeman discovered on our first South Sumatran journeys.

Expect to be humbled by indifference towards your being/following/accolades/stock portfolio/grace of your cutback. 

Jai had planned to stay in Indo for a month. Wisely, he left Bali after a week after witnessing the shitstorm of clogged lineups, ‘Well, we weren’t going to get any waves there,’ he told Stab. After an hour flight from Denpassar to Bima, Jai landed in Sumbawa with no boards (Airline policy is to put any baggage they can’t squeeze into the bird on the next one available). 

He promptly hit up Joey Barrel (father of Stab High competitor Rajo Barrel), and hired a repaired snapped Tokoro (that one with the orange spray) with a pair of ancient Kelly Slater FCS 1’s. “It actually felt really good, it was pretty similar dimensions to what I usually ride.”

A few days later, Jai had been reacquainted with his fresh quiver of Pyzels and was back surfing Periscopes. “This local dude had been sitting out there paddling for and missing waves. I was sitting out the back and this set came, which he turned for and missed. I paddled for the second one and he was right in my line. I tried to dodge him, but he paddled into me and threw his board underneath mine so his nose went into my rail…”

“I kept surfing the wave and when I paddled back out he started whistling and yelling at me and telling me I was dead. He told me to take my leash off, then he paddled over started trying to drown me. He was tiny, but he was foaming at the mouth, so I took my leash off.”

“At this point I’m swimming, then a big set came and he freaked out and bailed the board. I grabbed the leash right before the wave hit and he got washed in. I was out the back going ‘what just happened?’. Anyways, I had to go deal with it, so I paddled in behind him where he was waiting for me on the beach. Right as I got there he ran up into the bush and I was like ‘Holy shit, he’s going to grab a machete…

I walked up to the tower where ‘Grigs’ (Georde Grigor) was filming and told him what happened. Then the guy came running out of the bush and Grigs asked if everything was alright. He picked up this rock, threatening to smash the camera. For the next 40 minutes we were just trying to calm him down. Meanwhile, the waves are cooking with no one out but I was so rattled I couldn’t even surf.”

Jai ended up handing over a wetsuit top and a pair of boardies and they called it square. 

“I think that’s why it’s called ‘Fraudulent Behavior’.”