One of the least appealing aspects of surfing in the Mentawai Islands is crowded line-ups.

Garrett Parkes enjoying the freedom of an uncrowded Macaronies line-up. Pic: Smithy

One of the least appealing aspects of surfing in the Mentawai Islands is crowded line-ups. The popularity of waves like Macaronies, Lance’s Right and Rifles is such that getting a set wave can be near impossible. While we’ve been dealing with our fair share of crowds we are also benefiting from a new and somewhat controversial system implemented by the local village chief and the police. At the start of the 2010 season two moorings were secured in the channel at Macaronies. It was then decreed that these two moorings would be available to charter boats. The idea behind it was of course to reduce the number of surfers in the water at Macca’s. Being the mentally perfect left that it is, the amount of surfer traffic it attracts and how tight the take off zone is this is something that needed to be looked at. Not only was it suffering under the weight of charter boat overkill there’s also the guests (like us) staying in on land at the resort too.

So, much to the chagrin of some captains they’ve been asked to book in advance for time on the moorings. Each boat can have a shot at a two-day booking if they organize it.

I’m not sure if this type of system will be implemented at other breaks in the Islands but here it does seem to be working. There still is the odd morning we’ve seen four or five boats in the area surfing – but usually by 8am the local police have made there way out to the channel and asked the boats that aren’t booked in to move on. And for those in the two boats free to surf, and land camp dwellers like us, it’s happy days.