I was watching Rob Machado's surf movie 'The Drifter' (again, for the umpteenth time), imagining the 'sweet offshore southeast breeze of Indo' at my face covered by sunscreen lotion, perfect waves breaking on the shallow coral reef and all of sudden I began to remember a special day at my life during dry season of 2007...I can not tell you exactly the day, but probably was on the end of may...
After 4 days surfing one of the most perfect waves in the world at Desert Point (Lombok - Indonesia) with Fininho, Renato, Mario, Evandro and Ricardo, we were more than happy and with large smiles printed on our faces. The swell was already falling down and in the middle of the night before, we received a call from Bali telling me that a good friend was hospitalized with a tropical disease called 'meningitis' (at tropical countries is very common). Thus, we decided to return to Bali on the next day morning.
Myself at Desert Point, at the same swell 2 days before leave Lombok
The Boards (more than 15) and bags were packed and we set off towards Bali with Cap. Mario's speedboat. During the cruise we asked to captain if it was possible to check some islands in the vicinity, and he answered that we were in the course to visit his good friend in an island near from Gili Ringgit.
Arriving at the island, we saw two white houses and a big garden at the foot of the hill, located about 100m from our boat. It was a hot sunny day with a light breeze, so I didn't think twice to jump into the crystalline blue water to refresh myself and help Mario tie the boat rope in the tree near from us. We docked next to a wooden canoe with two stabilizers and a 15hp engine in the stern. A big man with a bear and a child on his lap came to greet in Portuguese, inviting us to drink a coffee at inside the house. I immediately recognized him as soon as we entered his property. He was that guy who caught the best tubes in the biggest day of the swell, along with the Mr. Desert. So, after his wife put coffee for everyone, he began to tell us how he went to live in that island. I really cannot remember all the details of that talk, however, he told us that lived in Brazil, Europe and Hawaii before Indonesia, to find a good place to live and surf perfect waves without crowd and hi-tech life. Nevertheless, now with 40 years old, married with an indonesian young wife and living in Lombok with their child since 2000, he was hating to live in this tropical paradise. "Why?" we asked to him, astonished. "You are living a dream that many people in the world could even kill to be in your place" I completed. Therefore, he answered that was getting crazy there and start to complain with everything and everyone without a good reason. "Living a dream for a long time can become a nightmare. At the same time, I can say that my situation it's like a 'Castaway mental conflict'." , he added. We continued to discuss about what is important to our lives and concluded that living in the middle of nothing may settled him into a closed mind, therefore, he was in need of an aim to head and start to work on this... Before leaving the island, he turned to us with euphoria and said: "I'll leave this place to give for my child opportunity to choice about her life. And you guys, helped me to open my eyes to the world again". After finishing the coffee and said goodbye to him and his family, we took the course back to Bali.
That night and several days later, his words continued to echo inside my head, and sometimes still makes me think about life. I may be wrong, but his experience is a good example to say that human being can not stop to dreaming even after realizing it. If you stop to dream about something, you will perish, in some way. You need to keep working on another aims, new approaches of life. He realized his dream living in a Paradise which many surfers around the world wish: perfect waves, warm temperature, coconuts trees in everywhere, good food, crystalline blue seawater and his family. However, he was not happy. He stopped to dream about his life for a long time. And after that day, i think he was dreaming again...
Cheers,
Cassio
PS: I heard about him last year, when i was in Bali again. He's at Bukit now, living with his family and owning a restaurant in Bingin.
