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Arabia Felix and the Isle of Bliss
Fresh discoveries in the Republic of Yemen’s Socotra archipelago
Story by Jese Hines
Photos by DJ Struntz
Socotra, (from the Sanskrit dvipa sukhadhara – island of bliss) is a small archipelago of four islands in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Somalia, some 350km’s south of the Arabian Peninsula. Its relatively unknown coastal waters are known to be home to over eighty species of sharks including 15m Great Whites, as well as, when the SW monsoon blows a myriad of uncharted, ridable waves.
ON THE PLANE TO
Ever been to Yemen before? Probably not. Why do I ask? Because I am on my way and I can’t believe I’m actually going to a Muslim country when a war is happening just north between Israel and Lebanon. Perfect timing. Yep, we are on our way. We being DJ Struntz, Cheyne Cottrell, Kyle Garson, and myself, are on Yemenia Air a few hours from landing in Sanaa, their capital city. From there we go to Aden to catch a flight to our destination, Socotra Island. When we get there we have one mission, to find waves.
I still can’t believe it. This is going to be the craziest trip I’ve ever taken. I know we are here for a reason, but this is crazy. The unknown is what scares me. The more I write and think about it, I realize I do have fears. I’ve never had fears about a surf trip, but I have never been surfing in a Muslim country where they are not too excited about Americans. Plus, every single person I told I was coming here said I was stupid. My poor wife, she cried the whole hour and half ride to the airport. That is the worst thing, to see your wife crying because you are leaving her for two weeks to go surfing. This trip has already tested my faith and I am still in the airplane. It is the only thing I can rely on at this point. I made the decision to come here, so I have to trust God, or should I say Allah, for our safety and a successful trip.
ON THE PLANE FROM
I don’t understand Arabic. It is a foreign language spoken in a foreign land. Adventure seems to happen when everything is unfamiliar. For us, this trip to Yemen was exactly that, an adventure.
As I write things are getting more and more familiar. The women don’t have their faces and every other extremity covered, everything is not written in a strange script, and the lingering stench of body odour is nonexistent. We are flying home from Frankfurt, Germany, and it feels really good. We are all dying to go back to our air-conditioned comfortable lives in America. I am looking forward to familiarity.
Gosh, there is so much I could write about our trip. Actually there is too much to write about, so I will try and stick to the main points.
First off, the waves weren’t very good. The only reason there were waves was because the wind blew fi fty mph or more everyday out of the Southwest. We surfed mostly weak left point breaks. The best part about the surfi ng was that we were the only ones. The locals loved it. We had an audience for most of our sessions and even got one of our guides, Foaud to try it. He didn’t like, “the currents” in the water and he was not alone in his opinion; nearly every place we went people told us it was dangerous. The Yemen people are not interested in the waves, but just the fish. They were one up on us because besides a juicy beach break we found, the waves were lacklustre.
Yemen is a beautiful place, the landscape and the experience of Socotra Island more than made up for the waves or lack there of. I’ve never seen, and don’t think I will ever see a place like Socotra. If I try to explain it with my limited vocabulary and literary skill, I will ruin how amazing it really is. But I am going to do it anyway. The water, the Arabian Sea, was a milky emerald green that met white sand that quickly turned into brown, barren dry land. The terrain was all rock that took the form of small pebbles, giant boulders, or sheer mountain cliffs. I felt like I was on a movie set that had been scouted out for the sole purpose of putting the viewer in awe. Well, I was in awe at God’s, rather Allah’s, movie set. It was amazing.
The landscape of Socotra definitely made up for the waves, but the culture and our three guides who allowed us to experience it in a very intimate way, was what made me even forget we were there to surf. The people were amazing. The most hospitable, respectful, and interesting culture I’ve ever experienced. We camped the whole time, but not it tents, rather in people’s houses, community schools, and fisherman’s beach huts. The people willingly insisted that we have the best they had to offer and it was truly amazing. As we arrived to each new place our hosts would throw out a huge mat with pillows and blankets to sit on and bring che’, a spicy, sweet tea they all drink, to sip on over conversation. It was incredible and I will never forget it.
The best and of course most memorable was with the fisherman and his family over the mountain. (When I say over the mountain, I mean we literally had to hike over a mountain and three more miles to his house made of driftwood and fishing rope. It sat right on the sandy beach where his wife, son, daughter-inlaw, and grandkids lived, alone. We went there in search of bigger surf and found more than a choppy beach break, but a once in a lifetime experience with a hermit, Muslim fisherman and his family). He was amazing. I couldn’t understand a word he said, but by his body language, I knew he was a character. He thought we were crazy for climbing over a mountain solely to ride “dangerous” waves, but he still killed two of his choice goats, and cooked a smorgasbord of fish for us. We stayed on the beach under a full moon with him for one night and only surfed a total of an hour and a half, but it was worth every minute of the six-hour hike.
The only thing that could top off the experience of an ancient Arabic culture was the friendships made with our Socotran guides Fouad, Jamil, and Saud. Fouad was the only one who spoke English, so we got the closest to him, but our limited communication with Jamil and Saud by no means kept us from cultivating unforgettable friendships. I’ve never talked to a Muslim before this trip, so it was very cool to get to know and understand these guys. We had to stop and let them pray, make sure we didn’t eat with our right hand, and accept whatever weird foods they made us, but it was worth it. We got close enough by the end that Fouad told us the story of his arranged marriage to a girl he didn’t know while he was in love with another who he already promised to marry. We asked him questions and he asked us questions. What we both sides found out is that our culture and religions are so different, but as people, human beings, we are all still so similar.
I came to Yemen scared. I wanted to catch waves and get out, but somehow in the midst of my fears I knew something was going to change me here. What I didn’t know was that the very thing that changed me and the thing I enjoyed the most would be the very thing I feared: the unknown; this culture, these people. The memories I have and the friendships made have changed my outlook forever, proving once again that there really is no better way to learn about the world we live in than by getting out there and travelling around it.
