We thought that last bay would be hard to beat.  Paddling to empty waves straight from our anchored boat.  Nobody wanted to leave, so we didn’t.  For days.  

There’s an old saying in surfing: Never leave waves to find waves.  Makes sense, ‘a bird in the hand’.  Enjoy what you have and don’t waste the swell searching for something better.  But on this trip, we kept on doing just that.

Around the next corner we found an even better spot, a powerful lefthand wave breaking along a reef miles from land.  Once again the anchor went down, the toys came out of the lockers and we had the place to ourselves for a week.  By the end of that, our surfed-out shoulders were in pain, we had sunk a drone, snapped a surfboard and lost Bryan’s favourite hat.  It was hot and windless, but the swell kept coming, so we stayed.

One afternoon there was just enough breeze for me to get a wing foil going.  A passing fishing boat called in to the bay as I was winging around.  From the hoots and cheers as I whizzed past I would guess it was the first time this crew had seen wing foiling.  So much excitement.

Finally the forecast offered a chance to sail to our next destination, 200 miles NW to the island of Morotai.  Across the empty Halmahera Sea.
We motored out through the reefs at first light, the breeze appeared by 8am.  Light, but enough to hoist the main and gennaker and soon enough sail across the smooth sea at a satisfying 10 knots.  Before we’d had breakfast we were back in the Northern Hemisphere.  Springtime!  This was Matt’s first passage on Escapade and it was a fun one.  Fast sunny sailing, an Equator crossing, trolling a lure past some beautiful desert islands, weathering a big black rain squall and landing a huge billfish.

Actually that squall had just passed in the late afternoon.  The gennaker was furled and stowed, the black cloud cleared and the wind died completely, so the engine ran for a while until the breeze re-established.  At that moment the fish hit the lure and took off at high speed, our reel screaming.  Bryan was about to get spooled, but at that moment it was so calm, I was able to drive full astern towards the fish as Bryan won back some line.  Now the fish started to jump, marlin style. It looked enormous.
Finally Bryan brought it to the back step where we gaffed it and hauled it aboard.
It was dispatched instantly with a shot of good tequila to the gills.  We all took a breath.  Wow.  A new record for Escapade I think.  A sailfish well over 2m from bill to that massive tail, probably 50kg, we struggled to lift it for a photo.

Bryan stripped the meat from the carcass and we filled the fridges and freezer.

Fish supper, then night watches.  We sailed on under the stars until another rain squall finally turned off the wind in the early hours, then motored the final miles to Morotai.

Morotai is another mountainous island covered in steep, dense rainforest.  It was a major battleground in the Second World War.  The last Japanese soldier was finally captured in the jungle here, in 1974.  Twenty nine years after the war ended.

Satellite images led us to another bay, a quiet backwater, good holding on a shallow sandy patch, a friendly village, and a fun lefthand reef set up, right in front of us.
The village children paddled out to see us in dugout canoes, outriggers lashed with fishing line, paddled with a plank of wood and bailed out by the youngest boy with a half coconut shell.  We had a surprise for them.

Our huge catch the day before had yielded about 20kg of prime protein.  We donated half of that to the village.  I explained it to the boys, showed them a photo of the fish, then swung a big bag of frozen meat into their little canoe.  They were very excited, shouting “Terima kasih Mister!” as they paddled back to shore.  I hope their mother approved.

Later they returned with some fresh, hydrating coconuts, just in time for our cocktail hour.
The next day we had every child in the village hanging off the back of the boat in canoes.  We chatted about school, surfing and fishing, with the help of Google Translate.  The small boys were touching my hair to check it was real and were laughing at my pale skin.  In need of gifts, we raided Bryan’s Beer Pong locker and gave them each a ping pong ball.  Happy children.


Once again, the waves kept us content for days. 
Then one morning we were all ready to move on.  Leaving waves to find waves.  Around the next headland, to the next empty Shangri-La.

The waves we found up here were a step-up in quality from everything we had seen so far.   And there was some long period swell on it’s way.

We surfed empty, glassy, turquoise waves with a Jurassic Park backdrop, wild mountains covered in more thick jungle.  Steam rising from the green valleys.  The most extravagant scenery, then add a pod of dolphins swimming past our surfboards and generally a rainbow or two before another golden sunset.  You get the picture.

Here we were joined by three other sailing boats, all here for the surf.
At one point six of us surfed together, that’s a big crowd up here.
Here’s our new friend Loki finding some shade.

That long period swell peaked with a very special few days at our favourite spot.  That wave had something for everyone.  If you could handle the fast, steep drop at the top, you had a good chance of a barrelling section, followed by a long walling ride along the reef. 

Bryan was all-in:


Matt tuned up his backhand moves:


I just tried to keep out of trouble.


As the tide dropped, the wave changed gear and started to suck water up from in front of the reef, the surface seeming to dip below sea level.  Very intimidating.

It was a special few weeks.  The first anchorage was a perfect playground with a scenic backdrop, why leave?  But since then we have found so many more, all with a rideable reef break nearby, and each more spectacular than the last.  The swell up here has been mainly short period, and nothing huge, but amazingly consistent.  We’ve covered about 500 miles and 10 anchorages, in about four weeks.   Apart from the 30hrs on passage, we have ridden fun waves every day, and almost always just the three of us!  Where does that happen?

We were about as far north as you can go in Indonesia.  Only a few more specs of land between us and the Philippines.  Our seemingly endless run of north swells seems to have finally ended.  We’re in the transition period now between the end of the NW Monsoon, and the start of the SE Monsoon.  Every day when the sun is high, it’s really too warm to do anything and there is rarely any breeze, not even enough to motivate me to pump up the biggest wing.  Every day it rains, quite a lot.  None of that seemed to matter when the surf was so good, but maybe it’s time to head south now, away from this Equatorial zone.  At least the wind seems to be blowing down there.  

We’re calling at the port of Tobelo to re-supply.  We’re down to our last few coconuts and we’ve eaten all the sailfish.  Matt is leaving us on a long journey by land, sea and air to catch his flight home from Jakarta.  Bryan and I have started to scan the forecasts for an opportunity to sail back to the Southern Hemisphere.