glassy empty waves

poster sketch for the film

A few days ago I went with Mikala and his right hand man, Koming, and friend Scott, looking for waves to surf and shoot. At sunrise we ended up at the same secluded spot we went to the day before. It had been overhead and barreling, and was looking quite good the day before. I shot from land and Mikala surfed alone. The plan was to shoot in the water on this, our second day there.

It didn't look quite as perfect this day. And the swell had dropped some. Still, where I'm from, it would be considered epic. Koming didn't wan't to come out, "Its not that good," he said. If I grew up in a land of perfect waves, I might think the same.

"He just doesn't want to go right!" Mikala said. Mikala and I paddled out, and the bumps disappeared. It was total glass. Rice fields and temples could be seen from the water. And a few fishing boats out beyond us. The water was clean, and shined a beautiful silver blue in the morning. The sand below was black.

As beautiful as this sounds, there was a surprising amount of plastic rubbish on the beach. Like most empty beaches I have been to recently.

Looking to the north there are miles and miles of peaks that probably no one was on. I'm sure soon enough these will see more people. But there are still uncrowded waves to be found.