the perfect secret.
By Andrew Mooney, as told to Andy Morris
Last year, Central Coast kid Andrew Mooney spent some time with a bunch of American film graduates, making a documentary on exploration in isolated areas. The young film crew had their eyes on a particularly remote stretch of jungle coastline, and, in what Mooney was fairly sure was the middle of nowhere, they found the wave of his life. The only other surfer in the group agreed never to spill the beans on their whereabouts and sure enough he stayed true to his word. With no stills photographer on board and with the documentary still unreleased, there was no photo evidence of the wave. But the memory of the place kept pulling at Mooney, and for a year, he watched the charts and tried to convince a crew to return with him. This is Mooney’s story.
When I found the wave on the original trip, it was pure luck. We were supposed to get on a boat and steam ahead up a coast we’d already checked because we knew the conditions were right, but we didn’t know what was the other way. The boat never showed, so I grabbed a moped and went back the other way and checked all along the coastline. When I first laid eyes on the reef, I wasn’t sure how good it was. I could tell it was a long left barrel but I wasn’t sure about the reef that was in front of it or how the right-hander was breaking. I sure didn’t know it was a perfect A-frame! Since that trip I’d been keeping an eye on swell movements and knew I’d missed a few classics, but I’d never had a crew ready to go. Marti Paradisis and photog Stuart Gibson were firing this time, and the forecast was bigger than the original swell I’d surfed. It’s not the kind of place where you jump on a plane from Sydney and you’re paddling into screamers the next day. Or even the next. It’s a solid three-day slog to get to this neck of the jungle. Five planes, then six hours on eroded roads and we were in the exact same place I found myself over a year ago. A place where I knew there were waves. The whole purpose of this trip was to go back and surf this freaky A-frame I had stumbled on but there was so much more. I grabbed my board from the hut and by the time I got back to the rest of the crew the boat had arrived. Everyone wanted to get in the boat and the driver said I had to get in too, but I told the guys this wave looked too good and I had to go and check it properly. I rode back on the bike with a filmer, falling off the scooter trying to hold my board, and the cameraman went down too. We were frothing and rushing too hard. But it was even better than I could have hoped. When it finally turned on, I was flabbergasted to discover just how real the wave was. It’s hard to believe there’s a wave so good that has been left unturned. We couldn’t comprehend it. The days when it was 3-4 foot we were doing turns then flicking off and just screaming and laughing. We couldn’t believe we were the only two people in the whole world surfing this perfect wave. We sussed the takeoff zone quickly, but during lulls we did lose our bearings and the first wave would sometimes catch us out. There was a 30-metre section between the take of zone of the left and right. You’d be surfing the left, getting shacked, and you’d see three to four sets reel off on the right which you’d see spitting from the back. So you’d paddle to the right and get three to four bombs, then see the left reel off and you’d be like shit, I’ve got to get back over to the left.
“It felt surreal pioneering a wave, paddling out knowing you must be the first.”
There were times when Marti would sit over on the right and I’d be on the left. We’d yell out to each other, asking about each wave, cause you could see them from the back going mental. It got too much just having two people out there. You almost needed two people on the left and two on the right cause there were so many sick waves going unridden. The peak hadn’t been named so we did the honours. The left is now ‘Luke Wardell’s’. It was a barrel and you’d just lock in for 100 meters or so. The right is called ‘Matt Mooneys’. It had a long barrel section after takeoff, then you’d cut back and fade into the bowl, which kegged hard. I’ve never surfed the Mentawais, but Marti and Stu reckon the left is better than Green Balls’ and the right more perfect than Lance’s’. That might have just been all the excitement or perhaps they are genuine calls.
Four page editorial for the online surf magazine Rebel (2009)