Text: Pete Matthews
Photos: Tim Jones

I had been enjoying some good early season Bali surf when suddenly travel came to me in an email from my old friend Sean Moody. Sean had a filming gig for me over in West Oz where the American beer company BUD LIGHT was making a surf video for bars across America.
My first thought was to try and get one of the local boys involved. Garut was already in Oz doing a contest in Newcastle. Getting in touch with him and seeing if he was into it was easy, since he had already lost and the waves sucked in Newcastle.
Garut had just turned 21 a week before so it would be legal for him to be part of the movie (in America, the drinking age is 21). A few more emails and the trip started shaping up.
Garut and I meet up in Perth, got a car and headed south to Margaret River.
Moody had a nice little pad all lined up and despite getting a little lost on the way down, everything was good.
At the same time we were down there they were having a 6 star WQS at Margarets, so as one would expect the area was crawling with surfers. Everyday turned into us looking for the uncrowded spot...there was a lot of driving and hiking everyday, hours in the car and miles along the beach.

I think Garut started to understand how lucky he is to be from Bali...in Bali most spots have a warung with cold drinks and snacks and maybe a massage lady ready to spring into action. Bali has warm water and usually has good waves all day somewhere.
In West Oz we would wake up before the sun and get out on the road to start checking spots. It was freezing cold in the morning and wet wetsuits are never fun. This went on for two weeks, driving, hiking and surfing pretty average cold waves. We knew it gets good here but it just wasn’t doing it for us. It was a little cloudy, a little windy, and even a little small. Garut was getting tired and over it, but he knew he had to keep up with the boys we were with. We ate really good everyday, having barbeques and talking story with all of our friends from around the world.
Towards the end of the trip the conditions changed...the wind switched offshore and there were no clouds and we now had solid swell. The first day of the swell we walked for what seemed like forever to this beachbreak that had white sand and a light blue look to the water with bone crushing barrels, an epic place to shoot water photos. Garut got right into it, even pulling in and breaking his board after the first few waves. He then ran the 3 km back to the car to get his back up board.
Pulling into glory barrels got old though, so the next day we headed out to the Box. The Box is a super dangerous fast and short reefbreak. Sucking barrels break in water about a meter deep. With the Box being a right it was a little tough for Garut. After a few waves Garut took off and fell head first into the reef. The wave exploded and when it was all done, his board was broken in 3 pieces.

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