Mission to Nias, Indonesia

ROLL OUT THE BARRELS: That’s what the Indonesian island of Nias did for Asia Braithwaite when she and her father, Patrick “Magoo” Braithwaite, sought out the biggest, heaviest tubes on offer. Here she is, riding one of them. Pictures by Jorge Santome, Falaga Photos

Thirty or 40 men were in the water, waiting their turn to ride some of the sweetest, heaviest, biggest waves in Nias, an island in north-west Indonesia, off the west coast of Sumatra.

Change that . . . 30 or 40 men, and one girl.

Asia Braithwaite, 16 at the time, was hunting barrels. She was there with her father, Patrick “Magoo” Braithwaite, who had pitched the one-month trip extension in no-frills language. They had already spent a month in Sumbawa, south-east Indonesia, on their first overseas surf trip since the Covid pandemic struck.

Patrick's wife, Marina Grimani, and their other daughter, Mahia, 14 at the time, were about to head home but Patrick thought Asia was ready for a big step up in wave intensity.

He put his case to Asia: “I will pull you out of school for another month and we will go up to Sumatra. I know a wave there that's heavy and dangerous. If we go there you are not sleeping in; there's no mucking around. You will get the biggest barrels in your life and the heaviest surf ever surfed by a Kiwi female.”

He didn't have to ask twice.

Asia has been surfing for longer than she can remember.

“When I was young my dad used to take me out and put me on a longboard. He had me on his shoulders and he would have me lying on the front and get me to stand up. When I was five or six I started doing it by myself and he would pitch me into the little waves by the shore.”

Until the Covid pandemic, Patrick and Marina had visited the surf spots of Indonesia every year for 30 years. When they had a daughter, on August 13, 2005, they named her Asia in celebration of all the good times they had enjoyed in that part of the world. On August 12, 2007, they had another daughter and named her after one of their favourite New Zealand spots, Mahia.

Asia and Mahia were soon joining their parents in the water on these annual jaunts.

Patrick, a property manager when he's not surfing, had them exploring new marine territory as their ability and experience allowed.

He had surfed since he was a teenager growing up in Gisborne.

“I travelled for 23 years to see the world, open my mind, and to surf. My daughters have been surfing since they were six or seven. I've been pushing them into waves since they were little kids.”

Surfing was just fun when Asia was a little kid.

“I've been surfing my whole life, and I was always competitive, but I was ‘on and off'. Then around the age of 13 or 14 I started to go hard. I thought, ‘This is what I want to do'.”

Surf photographer Cory Scott saw footage and photographs of Asia surfing on her Indonesian trip extension. She'd told him a year before that she wanted to get the biggest barrels a New Zealand woman had ever surfed. Based on what he saw, Scott thought she probably had.

“Surfers travel from all over the world to test themselves in the powerful tubes that form when a huge swell hits the coral reef of Nias,” Scott said.

The 2004 Indian Ocean Boxing Day Tsunami, caused by an undersea megathrust earthquake, was actually a series of tsunamis, estimated to have killed over 227,000 people in 14 countries. North-western Indonesia was among the hardest-hit areas.

In the aftermath of the tsunamis' death and destruction, one uncomfortable but intriguing fact emerged: the movement of the sea-floor in the earthquake had made the Nias wave bigger and more challenging — from the big-wave surfer's perspective, better.

Google “female big-wave surfers” and not many names come up. Prominent are Andrea Moller, the first woman to paddle in at Jaws, Maui, Hawaii; Sarah Gerhardt, the first woman to surf Mavericks, California, and the first female tow-in surfer; Keala Kennelly, the first woman to ride the heavy Teahupo'o, Tahiti, in 2005; and Maia Gabeira, who almost drowned in a wipeout at Nazaré, Portugal, in 2013, returned two years later and in 2020 surfed the biggest wave ever ridden by a woman and the biggest surfed by anyone that year, a 73.5-foot (22.4-metre) monster, also at Nazaré.

Scott says the number of women in big-wave surfing seems to be growing.

“The Padang Padang Cup in Bali is an invitation-only competition for the best tube riders in the world,” Scott said.

“Erin Brooks, a 15-year-old girl from the United States, was the only female in the competition and made the final, placing fourth. A few women out there are starting to really push it.”

Asia would love to join them.

Scott says some big-wave surfers specialise in paddle-in surfing, where they rely on timing and their own paddle power to catch the wave — Asia is one of these; some specialise in tow-in surfing, where they are towed on to the wave by jetski — Gabeira is one of these, having been taken under the wing of some of the greats of tow-in surfing; and some do both with apparently consummate ease — Kennelly is one of these.

No one was being towed in where Patrick took his daughter.

“We stayed in a remote village that only a surfer would know about,” he said.

“We got there by public transport — planes and buses. We hired canoes to get across a river. We picked up motorbikes and put our surfboards on the side. Where we stayed, we were right in front of the waves.

“In the water, it was every man for himself. There were 30 or 40 guys out there — Hawaiians, Aussies, surfers travelling the world for what we were after. Asia was the only girl.”

The tough thing about Asia's goal of surfing big barrels was the consequence of falling off the board.

“You hit the reef,” Patrick said.

“It is not just about being held under the water. You are getting absolutely ragdolled. It happened every session. She wasn't making every wave. I saw her getting smashed on a couple.

“We were doing a minimum of six hours a day,” Patrick said.

“It’s like surfing in a hot bath. It melts the wax off your board. I’m serious. You are right up close to the equator.”

Asia said she was “pretty lucky” in her collisions with the coral reefs. At Nias, she hit the reef and got just a little cut on her toe. But in the first month of her Indonesian stay she took a more serious tumble.

“At Lakey Peak in south Sumbawa, I took off on this wave and tried to pull in but I nosedived and went over the falls at the top of the wave, and straight under,” Asia said.

“The wave threw me over and I hit the bottom. I bounced off the reef, then I hit my foot, elbow and right leg. The leg was the worst. I hit a rock and it scraped my knee and thigh. There was blood and stuff.

“Limes kill the bacteria from the reef, so I went into the beachfront store and asked for a lime to put on my cuts to keep the wounds clean.”

She was back in the water three days later.

Asia felt as if she had to earn her place in the Nias queue for waves.

“It was basically just a whole bunch of guys, and me. We all wanted to get really good waves, but it’s difficult to get your share and you have to kind of hustle. As a female, you have to prove yourself and show you can surf those waves.

“I was sitting out there for a good half-hour to an hour waiting for a good set to come through. One came and I yelled, ‘I’m going,’ and made sure I was on it. Once you call it you have to commit.

“Once they knew I was capable of surfing those conditions they were more approving.

“They were older surfers, in their 40s, the big guns, people who have been doing it for a long time. Even the locals gave priority to them. The younger ones have all the leftovers.

“When you are the only girl, especially when you are young, you have to prove to them you can do it. Once you do, they are not unfriendly . . . you just have to prove you are worthy to be out there.”

Two waves stand out in Asia Braithwaite’s memory from her extra month in Indonesia. The height of the bigger one was six to eight feet, measured on the back of the wave.

“I was in this huge tunnel of water. It was an amazing feeling . . . how heavy, how powerful and how much energy it had. I’d never surfed anything like that.

“Adrenalin was rushing through my body. I have always liked big waves. It takes quite a bit for me to actually feel adrenalin, to feel scared of something and try to conquer it.

“Now I want to go bigger. I have surfed that size; now I want to see how far my limits go.”

Is it fear or excitement she feels in big surf?

“It’s more excitement. I like the feeling of being scared.”

So does she like horror films?

“I do, actually.”

Towards the end of the trip she was feeling quite comfortable in bigger waves and was “just going for it”.

Bali-based Australian surfer-shaper Dylan Longbottom is a long-standing figure in the big-wave surfing scene, and told Asia he was looking at taking a few up-and-coming surfers to Hawaii to test their limits, and suggested she might like to join them.

That’s a possibility for the future, and Asia is keen to see how far she can go.

“I don’t have much fear but I do like to conquer it. I want to go to Teahupo’o. I’d have to start training and do a lot of breathing work, holding my breath under water for long periods.”

In the meantime, her goal is to make the New Zealand team for the world junior championships next year. Beyond that, she has her sights on a place in the team for the world champs or the Olympics.

“It would be a dream come true being a pro.”

Asked why she loves surfing, Asia says being in the water is like therapy.

“I don’t know what it is about the energy, but it has this feeling to it that lightens your day.”

Surfing is not her only leisure pursuit. She skates, rides horses and, for fitness, does a bit of boxing training. She is thinking of taking the boxing a step further and training for a fight.

Asia is a Year 12 student at Campion College and plans to go back to school next year, then probably take a gap year and travel. University may follow, but that could depend on how her surfing goes.

Patrick Braithwaite is proud of what his daughter has achieved already: “Asia has no sponsorship and worked for a year and a half every day after school, waitressing at The Works cafe, to fund her trip.”