Welcome to the Mentawai Journal. My name is Christie Carter and I’ve decided to create this blog to share some of the stories collected over 20 years living and surfing on an Indonesian island.
The Mentawai Islands are small and remote and don’t get many visitors aside from surfers. If the larger world were to learn about Mentawai, it would generate a more sustainable income source for the local people. Outside of tourism, there are not a lot of other resources to be found out here that can support such an isolated archipelago within Indonesia.
I’ve been living in Indonesia since 1997, and founded the first surf resort in Mentawai. The WavePark Resort is located in northern Mentawai, in an area called the Playgrounds. I spent the last 25 years developing the resort, living on an island that’s probably smaller than your entire neighborhood.
Dozens of meetings, thousands of documents, interviews, magazine articles, photo shoots, videos, starting varying types of businesses and surfing with celebrity personalities means a lot of stories to tell, and a lot of personal opinions about things that go on around here.
This blog will also aim to answer your questions about surfing, Indonesia, and the Mentawais. WavePark Resort accepts 12 guests every 10 or 11 days and as a host I get asked a lot of questions every trip. I’ll be answering some of those frequent questions in this blog, with stories and videos and even some music!
Here are just a few of the topics we’ll be featuring in this blog:
- Videos with tips for safety and etiquette for surfers, including a “surf over reef” series which is still in production.
- Stories and insights for property developers, tourists and government officials in both Bahasa and English.
- Surfboard design and equipment selection
- Tropical wound management
- Mentawai and Indonesian cultural questions
- Guest bloggers
There should be something in here for everybody, but if you’re not finding something let me know in the comments and I’ll write about it!