Trent Woodleigh (Owner/Operator)
Hi I’m Trent Woodleigh, I was introduced to surfing as a young fifteen-year-old boy along the south coast beaches of Sydney and like every surfer once I had a taste… I was hooked. I was hungry to surf the best breaks in the world and become the best surfer I could be, for the proceeding fifteen years I pursued this mission relentlessly. My journey exposed a deep love for the ocean and I thrived at being a lifeguard, a surf coach, and for the past five years a vessel master and engineer.
One place had me racing back for more: once, twice and up to five times a year for the sheer perfection of waves it offered in constant abundance, the freedom to ride in solitude, and the beauty of the pristine tropical environment, enchanting flavoured cuisine and simple happiness of the native communities. It was the Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra that had me dreaming of wave perfection.
Inevitably, I became a partner with a local Indonesian legend Dedi in a surf charter vessel called “Saraina”. Our vision was to share the magic of the Mentawai Islands with everyone.
As the operator/owner of Saraina I am grateful to share my love for the ocean, the knowledge I have acquired, the experiences that shaped me and the sheer love of taking people on an adventure in Indonesia. As a team our professional crew, including Dedi and myself, take immense pride in navigating to some of the best surf breaks in the world and create a life enhancing experience by making it accessible to everyone as the most affordable surf charter in the Islands.
Dedi (Owner/Operator)
Hi I’m Dedi. Long before the Mentawais was classified as a surfing mecca of the world, here I was riding waves on traditional handmade canoes before I had even seen a surfboard. I started in the early nineties, at that time local people were afraid of the water, they were jungle people and had a fear of the ocean because of the tsunami’s that had devastated the land. When I started they all thought I was crazy.
When I saw the first surfers arrive in the islands and watched them riding waves with surfboards I knew the future of the Mentawais was Surfing. I jumped at the opportunity to crew on the first surf charter boat in the islands, the local knowledge and experience I had gained allowed me to share the unknown breaks to the rest of the world. I’ll never forget the day a surfer gave me a surfboard and I traded in my canoe. And for the following twenty years I worked on most of the surf charter boats still in operation today to share that knowledge.
I was the first local to become a certified tourism guide and set a standard for future guides, I’ve worked alongside surfaid, and recently I am pushing to protect the Mentawais against illegal fishing and protecting the reef to create a sustainable environment for the future of visitors and locals. I have recently joined forces with Sumatran Surfers to start West Sumatra’s first board riders club and it has been over ten years now since I teamed up with a friend to build ‘Saraina’. It’s been the past five years she has been re-fitted to basically a brand new boat, setting a level of safe operational standard and a platform to share my vision from so many years ago of navigating surfers to the best breaks in the world.
