I was powerless. Sitting there on the back of a power boat with 20 other people at some river mouth in Indo being ‘commanded’ by what looked like a 14-year-old kid: “Run before it hits you!”

Looking to the leeward, I saw a massive set of waves fast approaching the entrance of the river. It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that there was no way we were getting out of this situation alive! And, on top of that, some kid is calling the shots!

I had just spent three days travelling from Brazil to Indo. By plane from Florianopolis to Sao Paulo, Dallas, Tokyo, Denpasar; via a seven-hour bus convoy from Kuta Beach to the ferry port between Bali and Java; a 50-minute ferry ride across one of the deadliest straights in the world… I could go on but you get the picture. Now we were just an hour boat ride away from our destination at the very eastern point of Java island – if we were lucky!

Back on the river mouth, the captain is fighting a losing battle. It takes too long for a boat that size to respond to her rudder so when the first wave of the set slams into her side, she had just begun to turn and was sideways to the wave – the worst possible position.

For the green hands, the sound alone was terrifying. The boat started to lurch to the leeward – slowly at first, the second wave passing over the entire front and deck, damaging unattended photographers’ and film crews’ gear, some losing all they had!

We were all getting wet! As the waves continued to pound the boat, she inevitably succumbed to the merciless power of the ocean. Those on deck clung to the nearest fixture, fearful that they might fall into the lee scuppers. Standing in ankle deep water, I’m holding on for dear life while trying to help my friends position themselves in a relatively safe place.

The longer the boat stayed on her side, the greater the chance became we would sink. Luckily there was a break in the sets and the power boat came back to life! We felt the easing of the awful strain in our hands, feet, stomachs, The captain sensed it too and, with a full throttle of the engines, powered thorough the next set of waves approaching the river mouth.

Now in the open ocean and, in theory, safe, we relaxed. But moments later as we rounded the tip of the headland, we saw the ‘real swell!’ I started to pray and beg of myself, ‘What the hell I’m doing here!’ Alternating huge waves and deep troughs found the power boat’s bottom slamming so hard into the waves that the strained metal sound produced made me believe she wouldn’t last the crossing to the Gradjagan Jungle Camp! Suddenly a rouge wave hit the boat! The deck shifted, and the green hands temporarily lost their balance. This time, the boat wasn’t going over, she was going backwards, water boiling over the deck as she was pushed against the waves! Panic on board again! Eventually, however, the boat got back on track and we were making progress toward the far end of the Plengkung reserve.

The year was 1995 and we were heading to the Jungle Camp of Gradjagan for the first edition of the Quiksilver Pro Gradjagan - the ASP’s bench mark ‘Dream Tour’ event. Three years before, in the very same place, friends and co-workers Bruce Raymond (Quiksilver International head honcho) and Rod Brooks (Quiksilver Contest Director), were sipping a beer after an incredible surf session at ‘Money Trees,’ talking about how incredible it would be to organize a contest there where the world’s best surfers could compete in one of the world’s best waves.

Upon their return to Australia and in a business meeting with IMG, Raymond learned that some beer company from The Netherlands was sponsoring an event in Australia totally focused on the European market via the usage of news feeds and TV shows. Instead of spending $12 million on a tournament in Europe, the company in question was spending $3 million in Australia and then feeding coverage of the event to the news outlets all over Europe. ‘Why couldn’t we do the exact same thing with surfing,’ thought Raymond?!

The support was loud and clear from the professional surfers themselves and led by 1988 World Champion Barton Lynch and three-time World Title Runner-up Gary Elkerton: “Good drivers need good race tracks! We must move the Tour away from crowd-infested, summer beach-break locations and concentrate on quality surf! Surfer’s need good waves in order to perform well.” ASP, under the new direction of Graham Stapelberg as its Executive Director, embraced the idea.

Quiksilver hired freelance media man Kirk Wilcox to ensure Europe would receive their fair share of the coverage, confident that the American and Australian markets would grab the news content immediately. Daily news feed tapes were shuttled out of the camp in the middle of the jungle, taken by boat to Banyuwangi, by motorbike to Jakarta and from there, by plane to Hong Kong where it was aired to Europe.

Back in the boat, we were in the middle of nowhere! With rumours (and evidence) of a recent Tsunami that wiped out the entire camp a year before, spiders bigger than your hands, monkeys faster than thieves, malaria, rats, rhinos and… what else!? Tigers, off course!

We arrived. Welcome to G-land! As the boat approached the bay inside the point that could easily fit 20 football stadiums, I could not believe my eyes! Eight to 10-foot surf of wave after wave after wave, stacked up as far as the eye could see – PERFECT!

Hosted by the always friendly local camp workers, we put our luggage and surfboards underneath the “first floor” of our huts and were paddling out an hour later. Like a dream within a dream, mine went from “nightmare trip” to a “dream world destination” as soon as I dropped into the first wave. I was living the fantasy of 10 out of 10 surfers on the planet – to be in an unbelievable place with your mates surfing the most perfect waves you ever seen!

The section called ‘Money Trees’ delivered 6- to 10-foot perfect surf during the first edition of the event. It was the most consistent place to hold a surfing event, hands down! All ASP records in terms, from perfect-10 scoring rides to heat totals, individual and combined, were broken. As the ASP Head Judge I had never seen anything like it!

Neither the rest of the travellers on Tour. With a massive Judges Tower erected right in the middle of the reef, the barrier of what was possible in terms of producing surfing events in exotic reef locations was also broken. New standards were set, but more importantly, the ‘taste’ of what the World Tour should be was finally offered to the hungry mouths of the Top 45! It should embody the spirit of the surf, it should make audiences around the world wish they were there, it should be a Dream to compete in! It should be The Dream Tour!

With a goal for a balance of 75% - 25% between Dream/Exotic and Spectator/Crowd locations, the objective was clear for ASP and its stakeholders: bringing us Jeffrey’s Bay, Mundaka, the point breaks of Australia, Fiji, Tahiti, Trestles, beach breaks of Hossegor, Japan, Brazil and, of course, Hawaii! Give us a waiting period for the best waves and we’ll take the sport to higher grounds.

Another two subsequent editions of contests at G-Land were of equal major success. During the third and last one, in 1997, the ‘mutant’ section called Speedies, awarded us with 10-12 foot folding barrels, as magnificent as Cloudbreak, Teahupoo or Pipeline, just four-times longer. Luke Egan came out on top, after the past winnings of Slater in ‘95 and Beschen in ‘96, but not before some of the most memorable heats in surfing history were had! But this is subject for future Renato Files.

So now you know. And if anyone were to ever asks you how the Foster’s ASP Word Tour became the ‘Dream Tour’ and why we call it that, you could tell them: Eleven years ago, two guys were having a beer after a surf session at G-land, when one friend told the other, “Imagine if we…”

Renato Hickel
Foster's ASP World Tour Manager