TUBULAR SPELLS: LUXURY SURF RESORTS
Tubular Spells: LUXURY SURF RESORTS - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Tubular Spells: LUXURY SURF RESORTS | |||||
| By: John Borthwick (Story & Pictures), Issue 32 – Spring 2007 | |||||
| (Dhonveli Resort & Spa – Maldives; Nihiwatu Resort – Sumba, Indonesia; Macaronis Surf Resort – Mentawai Isles, Indonesia; Nukubati Island Resort – Nukubati, Fiji) | |||||
| SURFING HAS COME OF AGE, AND NOW EVERYONE FROM CEOS TO COMPUTER BILLIONAIRES IS AN AFICIONADO. HERE ARE SOME OF THE LUXURY OPTIONS FOR THOSE WHO NO LONGER CONSIDER THEMSELVES BEACH BUMS. | |||||
| “It’s a hardcore version of paradise. Catching waves til you’re exhausted in some of the best surf in the world, then paddling back to a luxury boat where the crew immediately hand you a cold beer.” Two years after he surfed the remote Mentawai Archipelago off southern Sumatra aboard the top-of-the-line surf cruiser Adventure Komodo, Andrew Valder is still stoked. Valder, 37, Director of Rodriguez, a Sydney board-sports and music agency, is among the growing number of serious surfers who want maximum wave-time in the water without competing with 50, (or 250), other surfers. For this they head to surf resorts that now dot shores from the Indian Ocean to Latin America. Many original surf camps/resorts had very basic facilities, such as at the pioneering G-Land Jungle Camp in East Java, however, ‘executive’ surfers expect far more than bamboo huts and lumpy mattresses. Matching their clients’ capacity to afford the best in far-flung destinations, a new breed of specialist, luxury, surf resorts and cruise boats has emerged, combining five star bells and whistles with world-class reef surf. Tony Hinde has a CV that most surfers would drown and be re-born for. Shipwrecked in his 20’s on an Indian Ocean atoll – with his board – amid perfect reef breaks, Sydneysider Tony and a friend were the only surfers in the Maldives for some 15 years. He eventually established a surfing operation on a little resort island north of the capital, Male, where a perfect left-hand break nicknamed Pasta Point peels all day, just two minutes’ paddle from the shore. The island has ‘grown up’ into plush Dhonveli Resort and Spa, from where Tony oversees his Atoll Adventures’ guests surfing their brains loose on this genuinely ‘private’ reef (it is legally owned by the island), for around $3,227 a week. There are no more than 20-25 surfer guests on the island at any time. Plus one. Thirty years after that shipwreck, Tony Hinde is still on the job, getting tubed. Amid some of the best waves of my life, I paddle past him as he pops out of another barrel. “Just doing a site inspection,” he quips. Half a world away on the remote eastern Indonesian island of Sumba, another surfer, American Claude Graves, searched for months before finding a remote shoreline called Nihiwatu that had — you guessed it — a long and hollow reef break. Facing this delicious ‘left’ was a jungle amphitheatre where Claude and his wife Petra envisaged a resort for surfers, as well as divers, honeymooners and anyone with a taste for the truly exotic. I spend as much time as I can in the water here, occasionally gazing back between waves at Nihiwatu Resort’s six luxurious bungalows and two villas, spread along a green-lawned shore. There is a spa-yoga pavilion, two pools, boathouse and an open-air dining and bar pavilion. This combination of serenity and adrenaline, as with any up market resort doesn’t come cheaply. The all-inclusive tariff is US$390 per night, plus taxes, making Nihiwatu probably the world’s most expensive surf resort. Because of flight schedules from Bali, there is also a minimum five-night stay. There’s always the next perfect wave. As I drop into it, the shallow, brilliant reef rippling below, the lip cracking overhead — it’s just three of us out. So, it costs a motza? That’s the price these days to surf paradise. I haven’t yet surfed Indonesia’s legendary Mentawai Islands, but the raves have built its reputation to the point that, ironically, there is now crowding at even these remote reefs, especially when charter boats and shore-based surfers magnetically converge on a spot that’s ‘going off.’ Macaronis Surf Resort is one of the few places here that offers luxury villa accommodation, plus high-speed boat transfers to the best reefs. In the carbo-loaded nomenclature of surf spots, the Mentawais boast among scores of breaks, Macaronis Right and Macaronis Left. This reef was voted in 2004 as ‘the world’s funnest [sic] wave’ by a panel of 50 of the world’s best surfers, (if not best grammarians). Macaronis Resort rooms, at around $3,000 for nine nights, have aircon, spa bath, phone and television — features that may sound merely ‘entry level’ by resort standards until you recall how exceptionally basic village life in the Mentawais was until Surf City dropped in only about 15 years ago. “What a morning — wave after wave of consistent, head-high South Pacific perfection!” And just two surfers out. When Los Angeles-based Quicksilver Travel executive, Jeff Wilson scanned the reefs off Fiji’s Nukubati (pron. Nukumbati) Island on the north coast of Vanua Levu, he figured that the same swells that hit Hawaii in northern winter should also wrap through these passes in the Great Sea Reef. He wasn’t wrong. Five surf-sated days later, he knew he had found a major new destination, a surf glutton’s delight of perfect lefts plus a ‘machine-like right.’ To top it all off was the pleasure of recharging each night at five-star Nukubati Island Resort, where Jenny Leewai Burke’s Fijian hospitality is becoming a South Seas legend — to which this writer can testify. Dedicated surf resorts, not all of them luxurious, have sprung up from Samoa, the Philippines and El Salvador to Tonga, the Caroline Islands and Papua New Guinea. For some surfers, however, resorts are themselves an impetus to further escape. A tropical break crowded with locals and tourists — think Bali, Mauritius, Tahiti — is still a crowded break. Enter the dragon boat. For years, surf-smart boat skippers have offered live-aboard access to offshore reefs. An industry that began with hastily converted yachts, dhonis and salvage boats has also gone way upmarket. From Tahiti’s Tuamotu Archipelago to the Maldives Outer Atolls and the once ‘secret’ spots of southern Indonesia, joining a surf-hunting cruise is no longer a 10-day ‘ferals afloat’ epic. Instead you can now enjoy, starting from around $3,000 for a 10-day cruise (and climbing much higher), air-conditioned ensuite cabins, gourmet meals, bar, internet, Zodiacs, jetskis and, in some cases, helicopter transfers. But here’s more. Even louche surfari boats such as Manaal, cruising the Maldives, or the famed Indies Trader fleet of mega-buck gin palaces in the Mentawais are being topped. This season’s really well-heeled surfer literally drops-in on the waves — by chartered floatplane. | |||||
| Details: | |||||
| Maldives: Dhonveli Resort, and Manaal boat, www.atolltravel.com | |||||
| Sumba, Indonesia: Nihiwatu Resort, www.selecthotels.com | |||||
| Mentawai Isles, Indonesia: Macaronis Resort, and Midas boat, www.atolltravel.com Adventure Komodo and Indies Trader boats: www.indiestradercharters.com | |||||
| Fiji: Nukubati Island, www.selecthotels.com | |||||
| Surf’s up: Tips to get you out there | |||||
| - Expertise. With few exceptions, dedicated surf resorts are about punchy waves over live coral reefs, not easy beach-breaks over sand. Not the place for beginners. Minimum expertise level is competent, confident ‘intermediate plus’. - Timing. Most surf resorts are in the tropics and don’t catch year-round swell. Research your destination well. Try World Surfari’s Suggester: www.worldsurfaris.com Nature hasn’t heard of ‘cash rich-time poor’ — there can be flat surf days anywhere, so don’t expect to find the swell ‘window’ magically open if you’ve booked only a few days. - Medical. Carry top-range insurance, including flight evacuation. - Exclusive Rights. Resorts and boats rarely have ‘exclusive’ rights to a wave. Limited exceptions include the Maldives’ Pasta Point (by law), Fiji’s Cloudbreak (by assertion) and Sumba’s Nihiwatu and Fiji’s Tavarua (by access). Paying clients have no greater entitlement to public waves than any Tom, Dick or Ali who is also in the water. - Between waves. When the surf's not pumping, what else is on offer — scuba, wakeboards, culture? If you bring a partner, what will your ‘surf widow/widower’ do while you're out spinning tales from the tube? Plan a ‘surf divorce’? | |||||
| Log In, Paddle Out | |||||
| - Tavarua Island, Fiji, www.tavarua.com | |||||
| - Las Flores Surf Club, El Salvador, www.lasfloressurfclub.com | |||||
| - MV Haumana, Tuamotus, Tahiti, www.tahiti-haumana-cruises.com | |||||
| - PSC surf resort, Caroline Islands, Micronesia, www.worldsurfaris.com | |||||
| - Katiet Villas, Mentawai Islands, www.mentawairesorts.com | |||||
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