Video from: Billabong Womens
It’s a strange feeling to be adrift in the middle of nowhere. The sky above us, our boards below us, alone in the empty calm of the Indian Ocean, we imagined ourselves explorers seeking new horizons. Like modern-day Magellans, only with bikinis and surfboards. This is how people must have felt before there were maps: boundless and free.
But the Maldives are on a map, of course. We pointed to them there, our fingers grazing a string of ring-shaped atolls composed of more than a 1,000 coral islands. We sketched plans for a surf trip there on the back of a dirty napkin, dreaming of white sand, bustling fish markets and water-color lagoons.
Then, plans turned plane tickets, and we found ourselves adrift upon a rusty boat with Laura Enever, Alessa Quizon, and Isabella Nichols, our favorite bikinis from the Surf Capsule Collection, a quiver of boards, a few soggy egg sandwiches, and seven days at sea.
The clouds were heavy with humidity above us, the rain beading on our skin, the ocean below: If we’d been searching for water, now we couldn’t escape it if we’d tried. So we gave ourselves to this otherworldly place, ducking under the roaring waves of Lohi’s and sliding through tubes at Jails, cross-stepping at Ninjas and gliding across the right-handed break at Cokes. Mornings were filled with curry and unmade beds, afternoons with surfing and belly laughs, nights watching the sharks feed under a tapestry of stars.
We didn’t discover this place, but it’s our greatest discovery. It’s a strange feeling to be adrift in the middle of nowhere, but this is one odyssey that feels like coming home.
Music Credit:
“I Found the F” and “I Found the End”
Performed by Broadcast, Courtesy of Warp Records
