Sun Strooked.
When you plan to go anywhere with 8 people you can imagine the difficulties it entails, but when the trip is to a small remote island with 8 washed up Afends team riders, it’s more of a head fuck in the best possible way.
The destination was a small island to the west of Sumatra and getting there was a fucking mission. One flight to Kuala Lumpur, another to Medan Sumatra, a night in an airport hotel and then a small propeller operated flight over to the island of Simuelue. Fuck we had some highlights on this trip including Jai and Tito getting reamed at every airport stop by getting charged more for their boards than it cost to buy their flight. Naomi appearing on the trip and us still being a little unsure if he was just a figment of our imagination. The only proof we have is that he hands down dominated everyone in the surf and smoked more darts than anyone on land. Taj and Jhamil were like an old married couple sipping on tea and sleeping in every morning. Nearly going straight from groms to grannies, they did get a few head dips to redeem themselves.
JS speared his arm sending us to the only “hospital” on the island, a beaten-down rubble building surrounded by stray animals. Near certain JS was probably better off amputating than getting treated in a shack, we were greeted by a woman in a psychedelic dress, understanding enough of her English to realise she was the nurse. Introducing us to the doctor and gesturing us to a makeshift hospital bed, we figured if he could stop the bleeding now, we could amputate later when his arm inevitably turned green. JS sat through 10 internal stitches and 20 external stitches like a lord, in and out within the hour we were back to the homestay with a great story to tell the grandchildren one day.
Amongst the chaos, we nearly forgot we had to get some shots of us in some Afends clothes out of the water. Parko proved that reining in a bunch of baboons that just want to surf didn’t have to be as frustrating as an ingrown toenail that’s gone gangrene. Props to Parko for snapping some steezy shots of the range, including the new-gen Hemp 4.2.0 & Hemp 5.0 boardshorts that served us well in the surf. Throwing on our ‘Fuck Plastic Tee’ we even did our bit for the locals with a beach clean up, putting our efforts where our mouths are.
Check out the Sun Strooked Video below.
Music: 'Never Gonna Die' by Pennywise @_pennywise
Photographer/Videographer: Nick Parkinson @nparko
