Nihi Sumba is home to one of surfing’s most polarising waves. To surf Occy’s Left, you’ll need to check into the luxury resort and pay for a limited two-hour session in the lineup – a concept that’s long divided surfers who believe the ocean should remain free for everyone.
In his latest YouTube edit, Tom De Souza travels to the remote Indonesian island to see the controversial setup firsthand, speaking with Nihi’s founders and digging into the story behind surfing’s most exclusive wave. As legendary Aussie charger Tai ‘Buddha’ Graham puts it: “If you’re on the outside looking in, you hate it… But once you go there, it’s the best thing ever. You see what it’s all about, and the stuff they’re actually doing for the community – it all kind of makes sense.”
The deeper Tom looked, the more complicated the story became. The wave that many see as a symbol of surfing’s privatisation has also become the engine behind schools, health clinics, clean water projects and local employment. As founder Claude Graves explains: “There is an obligation for any developer going into a poor remote area… If we were going to do it for ourselves, we were going to do it for our neighbours too.”
The result isn’t a simple argument for or against privatised waves, but a nuanced look at one of surfing’s biggest ethical debates. As Tom concludes: “You can hate it. Or you can embrace it as a guilty pleasure with a silver lining. And maybe that’s the truth of Occy’s Left: it’s not really just about the wave.”
If you’d like to dive deeper into the history of Occy’s Left and the controversy surrounding Nihi Sumba, click here to read Tom De Souza’s full feature from Issue 605 of our mag.
