Secret Surf Spot

We are so lucky because about a 3 minute drive from our place we have a really great surf break called Pango. The water is clear and beautiful and depending on the tide and the wind, the waves can be just perfect for learners, seasoned surfers, longboarders or shortboarders.

It has two problems though.

The first is that it can get quite crowded. There are stacks of expats who go there, all the surfing tourists learn about it and the beach is just next door to Pango village which is full of kids who love nothing better than to spend whole days busting out gnarly surf moves on their home break. They like it so much that recently their village chief actually banned all surfing at Pango beach on a Sunday in an attempt to get the kids to go back to church. The ban applied to everyone, so it took some deft negotiating on the part of the Pango Surf Club owner to have the chief allow us heathen surfers back in the water.

The second problem is that the waves break onto a coral reef. Enough said.

So it was with much excitement that my neighbour Gordon and I set off this afternoon on an adventure to find a fabled surfing break that was perfect at low tide and pretty good all the rest of the time but better still – had a sandy bottom! Which for me as a learner surfer would mean that I could cheerfully launch myself onto waves without the disconcerting thought that I might get munched on sharp coral if things went horribly wrong.

Not only was this surfing break sandy, it was also very very secret.

In fact, it was SO secret that Gordon, who has been an avid surfer here for two years and has heaps of local surfing buddies, only got an inkling of this break’s existence a couple of weeks ago when someone, who couldn’t contain their glee at having spent an amazing day surfing there, let slip. They hadn’t divulged the location but they mentioned sand and that, teamed with another tid-bit surreptitiously passed to Gordon by another friend about this break being near a river mouth, was all he needed to jump on a geo-satellite image of Efate and narrow the possibilities down to about 3 spots. He had ruled out two, and today we were going to test the third.

So after a half hour drive and a secret turn off, we arrived where we thought the break might be. We followed a secret path down to the beach and – ta da!!! It was all true. Great waves, a sandy beach and no other surfers in sight.

Well actually that is not entirely correct, because the local kids had crafted some pretty awesome surfboards from planks of wood and were pulling some radical moves of their own. We got talking to them to try and suss out how many people regularly visited the spot. Obviously the secret has been held incredibly closely, because the kids named the handful of locals who knew about it (all of whom we know).

So now they can add my name to the list.

I like being part of a secret surfing society.