Recently, Verity Curran, a Newquay-based surfer set about her dream trip to Sumba, Indonesia — a remote island in East Nusa Tenggara that’s the yin to Bali’s yang, a place you go to get away, dodge crowds and get off the well-trodden path. Here’s what Verity found, and how it raised questions around life, goals, surfing, access to waves and so much more.
All images by Luke Patterson, unless stated.
Travel amnesia sets in‚ and you forget the feeling of restless legs‚ the ache in your back‚ the low-grade panic every time the plane makes a sudden noise or movement you’re not sure about․
It’s 13 hours to Singapore‚ a quick layover to change planes, followed by two-and-a-half hours to Bali․ By the time we landed at Denpasar‚ I was ruined in that specific long-haul way; stiff‚ fuzzy head‚ in need of some sleep and a stretch․
But the second the cabin doors were opened‚ the relief of solid ground ahead and the realisation that we were actually‚ finally‚ back in Indo – everything else fell away․ The heat‚ the smell of kretek smoke and frangipani‚ the babble of Bahasa – Indonesia gets in your senses before you’ve even cleared the gate․
Your protagonist throughout, Verity, sans wetsuit, in full Indo glory. Photo: Luke Patterson.
We sailed through the new e-gates without the queue chaos and wilting patience I remembered from before․
Incense‚ stone gods‚ wind-chime music piped gently through the arrivals hall like the island is already trying to slow down your pace․ We stood watching the baggage belt go round‚ nervously tracking an AirTag we’d put in our board bag․ The trolleys were all broken․ The boards made it․ I loved it immediately․
We stayed a couple days in Uluwatu․ Equal-parts magic and mild chaos․ More pink flower hair clips‚ matcha lattes and reformer studios than any small town needs‚ but still – warm water‚ reeling lefts‚ and the kind of uncomplicated surf that exists purely to shake the flight out of your legs․ Over the next few days I got a few small runners․ Scottie‚ who surfs a shortboard and therefore operates in an entirely different ocean to me‚ was happy too․ We got massages‚ we ate well‚ and we let our bodies catch up with our new time zone․
The contrast between us in the water is something we’ve made peace with over the years. I’m on a longboard, hunting for the slow-building, forgiving shoulder of a wave. He’s looking for the critical section, the steep drop, the speed. We paddle out together and often have completely different surf experiences remaining within meters of each other․ It works‚ mostly․ Sumba‚ it turned out‚ would test that arrangement in ways that Bali definitely didn’t.
It wasn’t easy to tell from the plane․ A direct flight from Bali takes less than an hour‚ and I pressed my nose against the glass as we approached‚ trying to make sense of this new island before my feet even touched the ground․ Flatter than I expected․ Drier․ The airport was tiny; the arrivals room no bigger than a beach car park. Our driver was waiting by a car whose air conditioning was blowing out warm air while he sat in his jacket․
The drive to Kerewe takes about an hour and a half, and it’s worth every minute: jungle and open hill‚ banana trees‚ rice paddy and buffalo in the fields‚ tiny kids in pristine school uniforms with backpacks almost as big as they were․ Men playing instruments neither of us recognised, sitting by the road like it was the most natural place to be.
As we approached the South West side of the island, the road got rougher, the jungle thinned out. And then, over the hill a dark blue line on the horizon. I felt excited․
It’s easy to frame far-flung places as borderline intangible, the reality is more stark; park yourself on a few days of flights and this is the result. Photo: Luke Patterson.
The Surf
We arrived to onshore wind and mid tide at Kerewe. No one was out. It looked makable in sections but nothing like the long peeling right hand point we had read about․ A couple of learner surfers jumped in and went to battle with the rip, dragging them away from the messy little A-frame in front of us. We had some lunch and the obligatory arrival Bintang while waiting for the tide to drop‚ then went in and found out the rip was no joke․ Scottie’s verdict on that first surf was that if this had been back home‚ that session would have gone down as one of the worst surfs he ever had․ Warm water and palm trees forgive a lot․
It set the tone for the island‚ really․ Sumba doesn’t hand you anything․ No surf shop‚ barely any reliable information, and what you do get is often conflicting, different tides recommended for the same spot depending on who you ask.
Sumba is known for its lefts. That’s the reason for going. Made famous by 1992 flick Green Iguana in which young-buck Occy puts his namesake on a wave. True story. Occy’s Left is one of the best lefts in the world. Here though, not Occy’s left, just another example of the top-to-bottom nature after the tube upon take-off. Photo: Luke Patterson
Scottie put it well afterwards: “You go in expecting something remote‚ and it still catches you out how remote it actually is․” We’d gone off seasonal wind direction and swell charts and landed, unknowingly, on the springiest of spring tides – low enough that villagers were out walking the exposed reef gathering urchins and whatever else had been left stranded. You build your knowledge of the place slowly, wave by wave, and most of what you learn contradicts something you were told the day before. The huge tides didn’t help.
After a day warming up at Kerewe we worked our way through most of what the Lamboya area had to offer; Pinnacles, Launchpads, a spot at Dassang Beach called Coco’s, and eventually Occy’s Left itself, once we reached NIHI.
The word was Coco’s was the easy one‚ the longboard-friendly one‚ the A-frame peeling both ways on a sand bottom‚ supposedly the most forgiving wave in the area․ The first time we went to find it we rode down jungle dirt tracks on our scooters and handed our keys to a local with a wide, betel-nut-red smile, trusting him entirely on no real basis other than his face. We went early in the evening at low tide‚ just to see what we were dealing with before committing to anything as it was starting to get dark․
A rare right in the land of never-ending lefts? Yes! Scottie, pushing the medium. Photo: Verity Curran.
We walked down expecting to find a soft and friendly beach break. What we found was a hollow shore dump that rivalled Hossegor‚ that springiest of spring tide almost certainly doing us no favours․ We left having bought a coconut out of obligation from the man minding our scooters, and got eaten alive by mosquitoes for our trouble.
When I went back at a slightly less “low” low tide, Coco’s turned out to be a far easier wave but still a pretty fast one. Only the right was working, the left wasn’t showing itself at all․ I had a couple of waves and then‚ looked across at the reef to where Launchpads is. We were told not to surf it when the tide was low‚ but it was empty‚ it looked like a genuinely nice left․ So we headed over․
I sat out wide on the longboard‚ hesitant‚ watching a few sets come in‚ trying to work out how deep to sit and where exactly the supposedly brutal, shallow reef was hiding.
Inching deeper, as I got more understanding of how the wave came in, I paddled for a wave and caught it. The wall held up for a fast and fun, fairly long ride before the end section closed out as it got shallower. Convinced I must be hovering right over the reef I’d been warned about, I climbed back on the board‚ carefully as possible‚ the whole time thinking I’m gonna slice my foot‚ or drag my fin across it‚ but I didn’t touch the bottom at all.
We had it to ourselves for the best part of an hour․
Fast but makeable‚ genuinely lovely lefts․ Nobody else in the water․ Then the surf camp arrived – all six of them – and paddled right past us to the deepest part that looked unmakeable, and then proceeded to not make a single wave, let alone take off. I decided the energy had gone from peaceful to bro-heavy and called it, content with what I’d already had and slightly baffled that the wave I’d been warned off was much more fun than the one sold to us as easy․
It’s a different ball-game going from UK beachies to the power of remote Indo reefs. If you know Verity, you’ll know she ain’t afraid to swing. Photo: Luke Patterson.
Round the corner and a boat ride away (or risk of puncture on the savage trail) Pinnacles was the most popular spot‚ it was a short‚ fast‚ hollow right that held swell․ I’d heard mixed reports‚ a heavy right that doesn’t let up on the inside, or something that mellows out and suits a longboard just fine at the right section. I brought my longboard and promised myself that if it looked too heavy‚ I would sit in the boat and watch․
It didn’t look too bad from the boat‚ but it looked considerably heavier when I was actually paddling for one․ The ‘inside’ we had been told about sat just a few metres down, on the shoulder, and the wave looked perfect right up until the moment the bottom fell out from under it.
Four foot doesn’t sound like much while I sit here and write․ On a longboard‚ on a drop that sudden‚ it felt like plenty․ I got a handful of fun short rides․ Scottie got loads of waves there‚ he was in his element‚ fast‚ steep take-offs‚ then shooting past me with the kind of speed that wave was clearly built for.
Kerewe and I never really got along․ We figured out pretty early that to paddle across the reef was a mistake, by the time you got to the waves the rip had taken you so far down the point that a huge section had been bypassed and your arms were already tired, so we started walking to the headland instead, entering at the top of what’s supposed to be a super long right hander.
I caught a few waves on the midlength when I could‚ or the longboard when I could get hold of one․ That’s a whole experience in itself․ But getting a wave was never really the problem. Being in the right spot for the next one was. I’d sit where I’d seen a nice wave break during the previous set, convinced I’d cracked it, and then get caught by a wider, bigger set charging in from the horizon – every single time. No matter how many times I surfed it‚ I never knew what to expect․
Where jungle meets ocean. There’s a lot of lush colours and dense amount of sensual overload in Indo, so it’s great to find somewhere that lets you embrace it, rather than force it. Photo: Luke Patterson.
After another day of solid swell forecast for Kerewe, we decided to search for something gentler, more longboard friendly. I’d become friends with a local called Yohan before we got to the island, we’d arranged to hire scooters with board racks from him and he had an abundance of knowledge which seemed more accurate than other sources.
Yohan mentioned a wave four hours’ drive away that he wouldn’t name properly, just that it was good, and quiet, and worth the trip. We locked him in to drive us there and left early the next morning.
The drive alone was an adventure. Crossing from bigger towns into more rural areas, little girls in their Sunday best walking to church, dresses far too clean for the dust on that road. It had only existed for three years, a bumpy gravel track before that. It was a narrow corridor cut through the jungle so thick it was like a tunnel․ Vines hung across the road like something out of an adventure film․ The jungle had already reclaimed half the road, reducing the two lanes to one.
We could see glimpses of white water through the trees for miles before we reached the coast․ Yohan seemed a bit nervous as we approached the end of the road‚ worried that we had come all this way for nothing․ When we finally dropped into the bay and saw it peeling properly, he laughed, relieved, “ah, the wave is working.”
Yohan, the man with the plan. Photo: Verity Curran.
Before committing to the spot, we wanted to check the coves around the bay, so we turned onto private land down dug-out mud track, to reach a separate reef we’d spotted on the way in. Yohan handled it by bringing along a kid from the nearest village. He knew the way, and driving in with a local apparently made trespassing somebody else’s problem rather than ours. When we made it to the reef it was messy, much like Kerewe, good faces here and there but nothing consistent enough to lure us in, and we could only guess as to what the rip situation would be like if we did get in.
We decided to descend a cliff that was mainly tree roots and mud to check out another beach further round. The wave breaking in the far corner looked promising, but with a longboard in tow‚ I didn’t fancy scaling that cliff again.
After we the boy had walked us through every bay along that stretch and we’d weighed up the access on each one, we settled on the wave we’d originally come for.
By the time we got back it was reeling‚ sets of four or five peeling perfectly across the bay․ Shoulder to head high lefts that went on forever and no other surfers in sight․ Rain came in halfway through, the hills around the bay steaming gently afterwards like a hundred small signal fires. We surfed until I had nothing left‚ more waves in one session than most of the rest of the trip combined․ I loved that wave.
A local boy who had been guiding for us, called me “sister” all day․ We had no common language‚ broken Bahasa at best and a couple of English words․ We got to know him a little over those few hours in the bay‚ laughing most of the time․ His family had practically nothing․
They were all there with us on the beach by the end of the day‚ his brothers and sisters included‚ so when we wanted to say thank you we handed over everything we didn’t need for the rest of the trip there and then: the snacks‚ drinks‚ sun cream‚ whatever was left in the bags․ Scottie gave him his belly board‚ hoping that a kid with so little might find some refuge and joy in the sea‚ and maybe‚ one day‚ become a surfer himself․
Barrels? Of course. Photo: Luke Patterson.
Where We Stayed And Culture
Accommodation-wise, Sumba has a lot to offer at various price points, though none of it comes particularly cheap. Remoteness adds a premium everywhere, and the cluster of high-end resorts along this coast doesn’t help. We stayed in a mix of places over the two weeks, from straightforward budget rooms to the kind of luxury that flies guests in by helicopter, has swimming horses at the beach, and reserves a wave nobody else gets to surf.
Sumba Nautil was the cheapest․ Ali Derdouri, who’d been running it for 25 years‚ looked after us well․ His staff sussed out that we were Brits who liked our tea strong and slipped an extra bag into the pot every morning․ We ended up sharing breakfast most mornings with a dentist from Newquay who was also staying there‚ a very long way to travel to chat about the icy close-outs of home but a welcome coincidence․
Sumba Beach House, right on the beach, let us watch the surf from our deck all day, which had an obvious appeal. It was nice enough, the location was doing most of the heavy lifting‚ and the price was perhaps a bit higher than what was on offer․ The staff were genuinely excellent‚ and definitely made up for the terrible a/c and the techno blasting out from a speaker right in front of our room․
The etiquette is universal. Also, note the swell on the left. 3@15 being 2-3ft feels a little out of whack, but hey, 3 feet Indo is probably 3 feet Hawaiian. Photo: Verity Curran.
Boutique Hotel Alamayah felt incredibly peaceful. The building wraps around a moat-like pond stocked with fish, which Australian owners, Jess and Dan, explained does double duty: the fish eat mosquito eggs before they hatch, and the open water cools the breeze as it moves through the ground floor, which is why downstairs needed no air conditioning at all.
It’s a deliberately chemical-free approach. Most resorts in Indonesia fog for mosquitoes on a schedule, but Jess and Dan have chosen not to, on the basis that anything that kills mosquito larvae tends to kill quite a lot else along with it. The whole place is built to work with the heat, not fight it, somewhere between good design and common sense.
NIHI has a longer history than most surfers realise before they get there. The original Nihiwatu was founded in 1988 by American surfer Claude Graves and his wife Petra․ They had hiked across western Sumba‚ discovered this stretch of coast‚ seen the wave and decided that this was the place to build their lives‚ and eventually a resort‚ around․ At the time‚ there were no more than a handful of huts․ Claude and Petra had lived for years without running water‚ without electricity‚ got malaria more times than they could count‚ and created the Sumba Foundation, long before the resort became what it is now.
Chris Burch bought the place in 2012, in partnership with hotelier James McBride. The place was transformed from a simple surf lodge into one of the most awarded hotels in the world․ Among its accolades‚ Travel + Leisure named NIHI the world’s best hotel twice․ The Sumba Foundation became part of the Chris Burch Family Foundation‚ which also includes a hospitality school that places its graduates at NIHI‚ an English language program for thousands of children in dozens of government schools‚ and a marine preservation venture․
There are worse ways to recover post session. Alamayah’s delightful pool.
Whatever surfers reading this make of how the wave itself is managed‚ the foundation didn’t start out as a marketing tool and it didn’t start with Burch․ It started with the people who found the place․
Staying there matched the reputation. The caddy carried my board down to the water’s edge and a jet ski ran us out to the line-up․ After every wave‚ it came straight over to scoop you up and take you back out, so the only paddling involved all session was for the wave itself․ It was the kind of luxury that felt ridiculous, worlds away from what we were used to. I took full advantage, knowing that we likely won’t have an experience like that again․
The villa was something else too‚ outrageously luxurious; free mini bar‚ our own pool‚ gardens that descended down to a second cabana overlooking the wave․ We had two guest captains at our beck and call the entire time‚ with nothing too small for them to do – from extra tea bags‚ dinner reservations‚ to‚ presumably‚ anything short of surfing the wave for us․ Though I suspect they’d have paddled us out themselves if the ski had broken down.
The wave itself is the harder conversation․ Occy’s Left‚ named after Mark Occhilupo who made it famous in the 1992 surf movie The Green Iguana․ The same surf movie Scottie used to watch as a grom in Brighton, before paddling into a grey, sloppy Channel, theme tune blasting to psych himself and his mates up.
Neither of us could have told you back then that the wave would one day come with a ten-person daily cap and a price tag few surfers could afford․ I put the question to Mia, who works in marketing at NIHI and met me for lunch during our stay. She was straightforward about it: “NIHI doesn’t privatise the beach itself‚ locals can still get there through the village entrance‚ what’s controlled is the wave․ At NIHI’s new sister property on Rote Island,” she said the situation runs almost the opposite way; the wave there isn’t privatised at all, the access dispute is about the beach.”
That dispute wasn’t theoretical while we were there. NIHI Rote, opening on Bo’a Beach in 2026, had moved the public access point to the wave. In September‚ Erasmus Frans‚ a local homestay owner and surfer‚ was arrested for Facebook posts condemning the NIHI Rote’s developers for blocking access to the beach and the regency government for caving in to foreign investors․
The part of Indo you don’t really see. Photo: Verity Curran.
He was later acquitted of all charges and the resort’s co-founder completely denied the accusations․ He denied that anyone had ever been blocked from the beach or the wave․ Whatever the truth of it‚ the timing was hard to ignore; we were sitting with Mia discussing how differently NIHI manages access on its two islands, while on one of them, someone was facing prison over exactly that question.
We surfed it a few times on small and medium swells․ Technically‚ it lived up to most of what we’d read; fast‚ properly hollow when it had any size‚ and with a take off that punished hesitation․
Scottie rated it as good but tricky‚ shifty depending on swell and tide‚ not a forgiving wave to learn on․ He half-joked‚ that it didn’t matter how approachable the wave actually was‚ because everyone in the water had paid enough to be guided into the right ones regardless․I found that pressure harder to shake than I expected.
Surfing the midlength around people who had paid a serious amount of money to be exactly where I was‚ I thought too much about every wave and it showed․ Not my best surfing of the trip by a long shot‚ but I got on better once I switched to the longboard․ The more forgiving shoulder allowed me to get in early and regain a little of the confidence the midlength had taken away․
I never worked out where I landed on the bigger question, and I’m not sure anyone fully does. But seeing a grown man in surf leggings and an impact vest‚ pushed into a set wave by a guide‚ and then shouting “wee” on the drop‚ summed up something about who this wave is really for now․ And yet, the foundation work‚ the hospitality school‚ the English programme reaching thousands of kids‚ the 93% drop in malaria in the areas it reaches, that’s not nothing either․ It doesn’t make the wave any less private․ It just makes the privacy harder to resent․
Without the resort’s investment, the Sumba Foundation wouldn’t exist, giving access to education, training and a total giveback to the community. Photo: Verity Curran.
We scratched the surface of this small area of Sumba․ Two weeks barely gets you knowledge of the local surf breaks; the island itself goes on for miles past anywhere we managed to reach․ Driving anywhere meant winding through hills scattered with paddy fields, small herds of buffalo escorted by a farmer across the track, scooters, school children, the odd dog asleep in the middle of the road.
Life here is simple and close, generations under one roof, self-sufficient in a way we’ve mostly stopped being. Tourism‚ however uneasily‚ is what’s slowly opening up careers‚ education and healthcare that wouldn’t otherwise reach this far․ On every scooter journey we made, children waved at us and shouted hello, every single time without fail. Not for money or for photos‚ but just genuinely pleased to see two westerners go past on scooters․
A dazzling place that commands your attention, from take-off to shoreline. Photo: Luke Patterson.
Return To Bali
We returned to Bali for our last three nights in Medewi, chosen because we knew it as a long left suitable for longboarding. My birthday fell during those three nights in Medewi, and I spent part of it in Bali Med with a broken hand, the result of someone else bailing on a takeoff they had no business taking.
Beginners are technically not allowed on the main peak, and nobody’s meant to get pushed into a wave they can’t handle. In practice, most of the people I watched catch a wave there weren’t paddling for it themselves. They were being put on it․ It’s not gated‚ there’s no daily cap‚ no resort attached․ But it’s a more basic version of the same arrangement;: pay the right people‚ and the wave gets easier․ Sumba had raised the question as something unique‚ tied to one resort and one wave․ Medewi was answered it back‚ as something closer to how surf tourism actually works in most places․
Dreamscape. Photo: Luke Patterson.
Sumba isn’t short of good waves either, which makes the whole arrangement harder to justify on quality alone. We motored past unnamed peaks on the way to Pinnacles that looked just as good as anything we paid attention to, and when we asked Yohan whether the Occy’s situation bothered him‚ he shrugged it off completely․ He said‚ There are so many good waves here‚ more than enough to go around‚ and he wasn’t the only local who said that․ The road runs out long before the coastline does․ You’d need a boat and a few years‚ not a fortnight‚ to find what’s actually out there․
If I had to take one image away from the whole trip it would be that boy in the bay‚ four hours from anywhere‚ his new belly board in the shallow water‚ going nowhere fast and loving every second of it. Whether that privatised wave is a good thing or a bad thing is not for me to judge․All I know is that on the flight home to London I find myself hoping that there’s a kid in a tiny little bay on the island, catching whatever waves come through and having the time of his life on a belly board․
Fancy a bit of Sumba? Head over to NIHI and Alamayah, both the experts of island surf.
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