After completing a tiring three years at Brooks Institute of Photography, I booked a ticket to Indonesia with three friends: Brett Ayres, Lyle Smith, and my brother Greg. Not knowing what the swell was really going to do, we left our options open.
We landed in Bali, quickly picked up what we needed, and hopped on ferry after ferry bobbing from island to island. We ended up spending the majority of the time in Sumbawa where we scored three weeks of flawless waves. I’ve never experienced such consistency of surf. All we had to worry about was tides. The wind was mostly perfect, the swell was almost too big the entire time and the crowds were nonexistent.
It was crazy there, though. Being woken up every morning by mosque readings blasting through the local village of Maluk through loud speakers was the best alarm clock considering my iPhone got stolen in Bali the first day rendering me unable to set an alarm. The days were too easy – surf when the tides were good, and hide from the sun when they weren’t. Some days we spent hiking to local waterfalls when our rashes were too unbearable to surf. Other days we would take the scooters to “town” to find wifi and get laundry done for 15,000 rupiah ($1.35). It was paradise.
After a month living in mosquito net beds and avoiding malaria preventive trucks on scooters, our beat up selves made the trek back to the holy land of Bali. We got touristy and surfed shoulder to shoulder with every Euro and their mother for the last three days of the trip before hopping on China Air back to the States.
See more of Nick’s work at nickliotta.com and Instagram: @nickliotta
