Chronicle of a surf trip among remote islands and absolute silence in Indonesia

I always thought that surfing was about pushing, progress, evolution. Surfing meant improving maneuvers, catching better waves, buying new boards, gaining confidence. I was always focused on the forecast, the likes, the clips. Until I boarded a boat in northern Sumatra with five strangers, a backpack, and three boards tied with ropes to the wooden deck. That trip changed me forever. I found it by chance, on a half-peeled poster from a warung in Canggu. "Boat trip 7 days. Perfect waves. Nameless islands." It sounded exaggerated. But something in that phrase —the idea of getting away, of going beyond the map— called to me. Two weeks later, I was on board, sailing among green atolls, crossing blue channels, disconnected from everything except the wind and the sea. The days started before the sun. I woke up to the hum of the generator and the smell of black coffee coming from the boat's improvised kitchen. Outside, the scene was always the same and always different: a line of perfect waves breaking over a clear reef, with no one else around. Most of the time, we didn't even know the name of the spot. We just looked at it, smiled, and paddled towards it. The sessions lasted for hours. There was no rush, no plan. The waves weren't massive or technical: they were clean, long, precise. And the best part was the silence. Surfing there wasn't a competition or a performance, it was simply being. There was something profound in that non-doing. I found myself staring at the horizon, waiting for the next set without thinking about anything. There were no cameras. There was no pressure. It was just me, my board, and the sea. As it should always be. In the afternoons, we fished. Sometimes we snorkeled among fluorescent corals. We read. We slept on deck. The conversations were short but sincere. An Australian who had left his office years ago. A Frenchman living in his van. A girl from New Zealand who wrote poems and surfed as if she were dancing. I listened more than I spoke. It felt good not to have to explain anything. One night, after a brief storm, the sky opened up like a theater. Millions of stars. The sea was so still it looked like a mirror. I lay on the bow, wrapped in a damp towel, and felt completely small, but not insignificant. As if for the first time in a long time, I didn't need to do anything to belong. As if surfing —that surfing I had so often confused with ego, with identity— became something more essential: a form of silence, of connection. Returning was strange. The noise, the traffic, the wifi. But something had stayed with me. I no longer seek the biggest wave, nor the most perfect photo. Now, when I enter the water, I seek silence. I seek to be. I seek something that isn't always visible from the outside. Because I understood that sometimes you have to go far away to find yourself close. And that the best waves are not always the most perfect, but those that teach you something about yourself.