Mentawais tsunami – donate here
SurfAid’s Tom Plummer and other assessment teams spent yesterday surveying the damage in villages along the tsunami affected areas of North Pagai and South Pagai. Photo: Luke Gerson
SurfAid’s Tom Plummer and other assessment teams spent yesterday surveying the damage in villages along the tsunami affected areas of North Pagai and South Pagai. Photo: Luke Gerson
Our friends at Photogerson.com have just sent us a warming and fascinating set of photos of the Mentawai people. Luke and Kate have been in Indonesia for some time, you may remember last year we published their photo essay of the Mentawais.
Surfing and surf-related travel provide a natural interaction with the environment. But being aware of the environment when surfing doesn’t necessarily come naturally.
Today, journeying to remote areas is comparably easy. Our travel decisions – how we travel, where we stay, and which businesses we support – shape the local environment and community and can ultimately determine whether we leave with more of a realistic view of the area or something further from the truth.
Regular readers will know that I travelled to the Mentawais back in April of this year. So when news of the tsunami struck, I was more than usually worried about the fate of the folk out there.

Mr B, whose fourth film, ’21 Days Later’, is out this month on DVD, chats to Christiaan Bailey about his work, trying to extract money from the surf industry, and the British surf film scene…
Back in April I made a trip to the Mentawai Islands, which are situated several hours West of Sumatra in Indonesia. Usually with these sort of trips I’m hellbent on getting the best possible shots I can for whichever magazine I’m shooting for and don’t get to surf much.
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