| 28 May 2004
Terry Kavanagh, The Courier Mail
JACK Lewis's face had been smashed on a
reef of an Indian Ocean surf break, blood
dripping from two deep wounds, yet he couldn't
stop smiling.
The 20-year-old former Gold Coast surfer
didn't notice the pain because he was in
heaven, cruising crystal seas on the ultimate
surf trip in the Maldives.
Invited to join older brother James, 24,
and fellow professional surfer Beau Emerton
by their sponsor, Gold Coast surfwear company
Cult, Jack was on a "surfari"
in dreamland.
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Surifng
in the Maldives - perfect tonic |
Home was a launch anchored between two
small islands out of a surfing fantasy.
Brilliant lefts broke to one side, perfect
rights to the other. The toughest decision
during the 10-day sojourn was: "Which
side do we ride today?"
Lewis says nothing could compare with surfing
grinding barrels with just a couple of surfers.
No crowds, no hassles, they could pick off
the best waves that rolled in.
Perfect swells travel more than 2000km
from deep in the southern Indian Ocean.
When a 2m-3m swell finally reaches the Maldives,
hundreds of islands and atolls roar into
life with scores of world-class breaks among
the gems.
"It's the first time I've been on
a trip like that, but Cult hooked me up
and sent me on the trip of a lifetime,"
Lewis says. "We had a ball.
"I've been on a lot of little surf
trips with mates but nothing on that scale."
Lewis was raised on the Gold Coast's northern
beaches and, with James, they are long-time
members of Burleigh Boardriders Club.
The Lewis brothers are regarded among the
most talented surfers in the line-up when
the world-famous point break is firing.
While James is more of a career surfer,
competing in airshows and juggling university
studies on the Gold Coast, Jack moved to
Sydney to concentrate on an applied science
university degree.
The Maldive's trip was the ideal holiday
to recharge his surfing batteries and catch
up with his brother.
The best day's surfing happened one afternoon
after "work".
"We'd just finished a catalogue shoot
at a resort and the surf picked up to about
8-foot," Lewis says.
"The rights were firing and there
was just me and brother and Beau. We surfed
for about three hours by ourselves."
Lewis's part in the session came to a sudden
halt when he copped "a flogging".
"I needed 25 stitches to my face,"
he says. "I'd been surfing for about
2½ hours and pulled into a barrel
for ages . . . one of the local guys was
paddling through the wave and I had to jump
underneath him in the barrel.
"I hit the bottom and came up hoping
it was a scratch but there was 'claret'
all over my hand and I knew something had
happened."
The crew took him to a private hospital
in the Maldives capital Male, about one
hour away by boat, where he was stitched
up and returned to the dream.
"I was back on the boat that night
smiling again," he said, the buzz of
riding perfect tubes proving better than
any painkiller. Overall, he was very impressed
with the reef breaks in the region, although
he says Burleigh Point is still his favourite
break in the world.
He gives Burleigh a perfect 10 when it's
"on". The waves in the Maldives
are 8 of out 10, he says, with the right
known as Saltans the pick of the crop. Despite
the injury, he says the trip recharged his
surfing batteries after a couple of years
focusing on university.
When the stitches were removed a week later,
Jack joined James in Japan to compete in
the Quiksilver Airshow Series.
It was his first foray into competition
in about two years. He blitzed his way from
round one of the trials to finish runner-up
to former world champion Josh Kerr in the
final, pocketing $5000 prizemoney. "It
wasn't a bad way to end the trip,"
he says.
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