Text + photos: Bradley Masters

The mission to drive from Bali to the Island of Cloves started rather unexpectedly at 7 a.m. with a phone call to Dede Suryana. Dede was already packing for the trip and invited me to come along. After some all day and last minute preparations we hit the road around 9 o’clock that night.
22 hours of driving later we arrived at our first stop and were greeted with some playful waves. That night we hooked up with the local boys, and enjoyed a tasty fish BBQ with them.
Our first place of interest the next morning turned out to be amazing with fun lefts and rights breaking at our own private beach. It was actually the backdrop that blew us away with several mini tree-topped rock islands sticking up behind the waves. The session turned into an all-day affair with Dede loving the fact that he had the whole place to himself.

Over the next few days we searched around and stumbled upon handfuls of different spots to surf and just chill out by ourselves.
Upon checking the swell charts and seeing a big drop in the forecast, we made plans to truck along the old spice route and see what was around the next headland. We made sure to stop at every possible beach along the way to observe and document the area’s wave potential. After a good look around, we were able to note down a few spots, with one particular little area that really took to our liking.
Two days later we arrived at our next destination. We chilled out for the day and caught up with Dede’s old friend Leo, who happens to be half- Indonesian and half –French, a combo that equals a Frenchman with no attitude. Leo has grown up in this area since he was 5 months old. His story on how he and his mates started surfing was a good old tale to be told over a round of icy cold Bintangs.

With a big swell arriving we had our eyes set on one place that we named Big Brother in honor of Leo’s favourite wave. To see what this wave did just blew us away. That night we were on the phone to some friends of ours to come over for this swell. With just Dede and I in the water we wanted some guys here to enjoy this wave and to really see how it could be surfed.

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