New Tracksmag.com blogger Jay Killvan reckons, "Keep your cords close to your heart."

Did some one say corduroy? Bells Beach, Easter 2011. Pic: Ben Whitmore

As a green-snotted grommet Mum had me in a strapping pair of shit brown corduroy overalls, years later as a teen I climbed a palm tree on a tropical island and enjoyed corduroy. Today as an adult I carry a corduroy analogy that remains close to my heart.

The Hinako Islands were my destination, Asu Island to be exact. A goofy footed buddy dialed me into apparent gold that was humming off a tropical island in Northern Sumatra.

“Mate, Asu is classic, you have to go. Take the Pelni Ship from Jakarta, go the ferry from Sibolga to Gunnungsitoli, get a ride across to Sirombu, then take an outrigger from the village to the island, easy as. Best left I’ve ever surfed!” he said.

It was 1996, and like all pre-internet tip offs information was traded via car park ramblings and scribbles on scrap paper that were to function as maps. Crude yet adequate, I was sold.

Isolated, sweating and hungry, I would’ve added lonely though the lefthander was breaking most days and it became my pal. The first week the swell hitting the island was small, jumbled and useless. The section of prime reef real estate looked like a shit stain amidst the tropical surrounds, it wasn’t what I expected and I began to question my buddy and his ‘classic’ call.

That was until the evening of May 10^th. My diary has a deep, virtually engraved word reading “HYPNOTIC”. As I lay there under a frail mosquito net, the shore break that had been delicately lapping morphed into a sledgehammer during the dark hours, it pounded like a clock till the early morning. The drawing back of shells and coral fragments followed by the savage depositing back to the sand, over and over. With the humidity, mushroom porridge and the eerie silence of a nighttime jungle I was lead into hypnosis.

When I stood in the morning light within the confines of my nimble hut I could smell the ocean air, the sound of the sea had trebled and I knew straight away things were different. Just inside the coastal fringe laid a track that lead to islands only wave, it remained obscured until you remerged from the canopy onto the coral lined shore. I ran fast this day as I could hear ocean thunder. My heart pounded, I tripped over vines and I kicked my toes on buried coral heads, it was a thrill.

The bright glare forced my eyes into a tight squint; initially it was all about the noise. A hissing procession of waves autonomously peeled down the reef creating a sound similar to that of amplifier distortion. The island itself not far above sea level was dwarfed, though its reef holding staunch like an anchor. I needed a vantage point to truly absorb this event. It was the most phenomenal thing I had ever seen the ocean do, I was emotionally drawn to it.

I ran along the islands shore in a northwest direction towards what seemed like the source of the swell, though it was forever bending around the islands lazy curve. Mystified by this natural display of refraction I had many questions, as I was barely able to understand the dynamics of how waves could swing around as if on a clothesline. I climbed a fallen palm that had propped up against another, creating a natural A-frame ladder. Making clock-like arms I attempted to measure the angle of refraction, it was at least 270 degrees. The entire window of ocean I was scoping had evenly spaced and sized swell lines freighting off to the horizon.

“Corduroy” I said to myself in awe.

The sets had mostly 12 or 13 waves, evenly spaced; all marching to a silent beat. With a good few minutes between sets I knew that the swell must have traveled from far away, I had some idea of fetch though my knowledge of larger swell systems and periods was close to non-existent. The slow motion lip lines had me guessing it to be at least 12 feet, though with nothing to scale the waves against I was unsure. Some of the bigger sets appeared brutal and washed into the jungle, it was intimidating and I had no idea what to do with this line up as coconuts and fronds pinged off into the jungle. I sat perched silently in the palm for a good hour, staring endlessly.

Years later in May 2005 I swapped swell stories over Bintangs with Martin Daly, the skipper of the Indies Trader IV.

“May, May, and lets see, maybe May,” he said, confidently claiming May as the month to score epic waves in Sumatra, in between drinking shots from a butt filled ash tray.

He went on to explain how he has ventured throughout the Indonesian Archipelago comprised of some 13,000 islands, and believes Asu is in a special group of waves. He made comment that for me to step onto that island and into that swell I must have been blessed, yet not surprised as May delivers.

“Possibly a 1 in 20 year event it sounds like. It would’ve been a beastly low-pressure cell that developed under the African continent, holding its strength and duration for a good period. Probably sat high in the Indian for a while with nothing else in front of it… lucky little fucker.”

Martin went on to speak of other ramblings and his own classic corduroy days; I guess we all have our own pair. While my brown cords are worn, the memories of those corduroy lines wrapping around Asu are as fresh as ever.

Corduroy for life.

– Jay Killvan