Indonesia, the Mentawai Islands
John Seaton Callahan/surfEXPLORE
The Mentawai Islands of Indonesia have often been described as the best tropical surfing area in the world. Since their discovery by surfers back in the mid-1980’s, surfing adventurers have found a plethora of high-quality reef waves on the shores of these islands off the west coast of Sumatra.
While the islands now see a high volume of surfers for both boat charter trips ex-Padang on the Sumatran mainland and for the many resorts and surf camps now operating on the islands, it wasn’t always this way.
The islands themselves are unlike the large island of Sumatra nearby, separated by the treacherous 120 nautical mile Mentawai Strait. Where Sumatra is mountainous and volcanic, the Mentawai Islands are largely flat and there are no volcanoes.
This is because the islands have formed from millions of years of plate tectonic activity off the west side of Sumatra, where the Sunda plate and the Australian plate collide, with the Australian plate being…
