When Greg Sarkissian first arrived on Rote Island 15 years ago, the roads were dirt and there was no electricity or water connected to the fledgling tourist towns of the south-west coast. But there were waves – chief among them a long, glassy left‑hander called T-Land, or Besialu. It already had a cult following among hardcore surf nomads.
“It was true surf-camp style,” Sarkissian recalls, as we drive south from Rote’s airport. The now-tarmacked road is frequently obstructed by goats. A gleaming new petrol station outside the main tourist village of Nemberala opens when it receives stock and often runs out within hours. The single-storey houses are more breeze-block-and-corrugated-tin than the timber-and-thatch of old, but still the only structures taller than the palm trees are churches.
Sarkissian came to Rote at the urging of his Californian college friend Michael Schwab – the venture-capitalist, wave-obsessed son of billionaire investor Charles Schwab – who first surfed here in 2008. Sarkissian had lived in Indonesia since 2005 but had never heard of the island. “I didn’t even know where this province was,” he says. “You have to understand, Indonesia is a massive country.”
A bale and pool at Ume Bo’a villa © Adrian Morris
