DESERT STORMED: Photography by Pete Frieden

“One year we went off on this great adventure,” Surfer Pioneer Dave Andrews shares of his many 70’s Indonesian exploits. “We had no idea what we were getting into; there were ten surfers, five crewmen and my wife, and we all got onto this forty-foot turtle boat, sailed out of Benoa Harbour at midnight and saw Mount Agung as the sun rose. We turned across the Lombok Strait and one of the crewmen started tying everything down. I had no idea we were going to be going out into these radical ocean currents, with whirlpools and raging rivers in the middle of the ocean like you could never imagine. We had everything on that trip; there were three fires on that boat, we had a mutiny, a mattress caught fire and they couldn’t put it out so they just threw the whole thing over the side. But that’s when we discovered Desert Point. Bangko Bangko, it looked a lot like a desert to us and it had a perfect point wave, so we named it Desert Point.”



Like some blissful, beneficial parasite, the memories of those idyllic four months percolated continually in Dave Andrews mind and soul. He regaled friends with tales of his experiences, he mind-surfed the empty, tropical, crystalline waves over and over again and he knew he had to return. “I was just a young, broke surfer at that time, so it took me seven years to save up the money to go again.” But each trip back uncovered a new corner of Indonesia to Dave. First, Bali, but soon after, Nusa Lembongan, Lombok, Nias and Desert Point would follow. The destinations changed little, though as time progressed and Bali’s tourism industry and infrastructure boomed along with its traffic, crowds and trash the journeys in between became more, not less, challenging.



“That was a great experience; the discovery of Desert Point. It’s become one of the greatest surf spots in the world, and the kids that go there now… it’s unbelievable what they do. I couldn’t say I was the first there, but I was one of the first. We wouldn’t know; we were the only ones there and never saw someone else. Though over the years I’ve heard other claims, and I don’t know for sure, but I was definitely one of the first. All the things I did in Indonesia, I guess I was one of the first”. We can’t go back in time. We can’t claim discovery of G-Land or Lakey Peak or Lance’s Right. Like the Hollywood Walk of Fame, these breaks have the names of those that went before us indelibly embossed into each and every glassy wall that breaks upon them.But that’s not the way discovery works. It’s a personal journey and one that, as long as we remain true to ourselves, none can take from us.



Discovery exists outside of our comfort zone, away from suggestions and rumours, beyond the hours and minutes we plan in advance and into the realms of the unknown. It doesn’t have to be unknown to the world for it to be our discovery, only unknown to us. If we stumble across a perfect wave, a stunning headland, even a populated point break we never knew existed until we rounded the corner of a six-lane highway, we have experienced, and can claim a type of discovery, a sensation that we all seek as surfers. It might even exist at the end of your street as an eight year old kid dragging his board across the sand down the beach away from a crowd. Discovery is not about being the first, it’s simply about discovering what you never knew existed. A curiosity satisfied. A passion quenched. And it’s that driving force for this newness that will always maintain surfing as, pompous as it may sound, a bit of a heroic quest.