Usman Trioko has never learned to check a swell forecast. At Desert Point, he doesn’t need to; he just walks down to the beach and looks for himself. This Wednesday, that same instinct will get tested on a bigger stage, as the Indonesian left hosts its first-ever competitive event – the one day Capitulo Perfeito invitational tube contest.
For Usman, that unpredictability is the whole point. He calls Desert Point a “50-50” wave – some swells deliver perfect barrels, others nothing at all – and says the biggest challenge for anyone in Wednesday’s lineup, local knowledge or not, will simply be getting lucky. “You got to trust and believe,” he says of the wait for the right wave.
That doesn’t mean he’s nervous about sharing the water with some of the best tube riders. Usman has surfed alongside many of them on regular swells for years, and says the pressure isn’t about matching their skill – it’s about being in the right spot when the wave of the day rolls through. “I don’t get nervous,” he says. “But sometimes I don’t get lucky, even when I’m local.”
He won’t be facing that gamble alone. This weekend, organizers released the full eight-man field for Wednesday’s event, bringing together four surfers who qualified through the main Capitulo Perfeito event in Carcavelos, two local wildcards, and two international wildcards. The top four from Portugal earned direct entry into Lombok: Balaram Stack, Cam Richards, Pedro Calado, and Nic von Rupp – the latter stepping in for Noah Beschen, who is unable to travel due to professional commitments. Alongside Usman, fellow Indonesian Sulaiman rounds out the local wildcard spots, while Brazilian Bruno Santos, a past Capitulo Perfeito winner in Carcavelos, and Hawaiian Makana Pang, a first-timer in the event’s history, fill out the international wildcard picks.
Usman doesn’t pretend local knowledge guarantees anything against a field like this. “All the pros, they are pros,” he says. “We just have to show our local knowledge and then pray a good wave comes.” He’s quick to credit his fellow Indonesian wildcard, Sulaiman, as the one who reads the wave better than he does – a reminder that even at home, Desert Point has a way of humbling everyone in the water.
What he’s confident about is what kind of wave he wants. Usman is hoping for a faster, punchier swell – a touch of south, a touch of west – arguing that speed is what separates the surfers who can truly read Desert Point’s reef from those who can’t. He’s not chasing size, either: six to eight feet, he says, is the sweet spot before the wave turns into a washing machine.
Fewer people in the water, Usman says, also works in his favor. Desert Point usually draws crowds of fifty or more when it’s firing; Wednesday’s heats will have just a handful of surfers sharing the wave at a time. “When it’s less people, you get more confident,” he says. “You know you’re going to get the best waves.”
It’s a fitting test for a surfer who calls himself “a hundred percent tube rider” – more comfortable threading a pit than throwing an air, and unapologetic about it. Usman has mostly stepped back from competitive surfing in recent years, but a home event at Desert Point was one he couldn’t turn down.
It’s also a fitting kind of luck, then, that the swell lining up for Wednesday looks close to what Usman himself was hoping for. Forecasts call for a 2-metre swell with long period and offshore wind. Fast, clean conditions built to open up Desert Point’s heavier sections. First call is set for 7:00 AM local time.
The contest format will be as follows: Round 1 and Round 2 are both non-elimination, with the field split into two heats of four; every surfer competes in both rounds regardless of how the first goes, and the four highest scorers advance straight to the Final. All heats run 45 minutes, with a wildcard spot in Capitulo Perfeito 2027 on the line. The day opens with a local heat featuring a premium cluster from Lombok: Awan, Hendra, Rusdi, Fajrul, Ilham, Budi, Darmawan and Ziggy.
Whatever happens on Wednesday, Desert Point will have hosted a competitive event for the first time – a milestone for a wave that’s always run more on luck than schedule. One day, eight surfers, and one of the best lefts on the planet.
