Obviously when you’re hanging in an archipelago with over 13,000 islands, boats are playing a major role in everyday life. Traditionally, boats were the main means of inter-island transport, commerce, and communication. Fishing has always been one of the main sources of protein for Indonesians. For surfers, boats became a magic carpet to some of the world’s best waves. In the early days, many of Indo’s premier spots had absolutely no road access. Get there by boat, or don’t get there at all. For our group the timing was perfect. The Indonesian ban on turtle fishing had put the Benoa Harbour fleet out of work: the boats were just sitting there at anchor starting to deteriorate. After our first charter trip on Moana Manu, JM, our visionary with cash, secured our first boat: Sri Wira Bakti. She was a stout little Bali built, wood hulled, twelve meter motor sailer with a thirty-three horse Yanmar diesel engine. With some minor work turning the hold into a bunkroom she was ready to rock the following season. Along with Wira Bakti came Ketut Geram our trip manager, Nyoman our trip captain, and Wayan our cook and deckhand. Ketut’s family owned Bali Yacht Service at the time so everything was well greased in and out of Benoa. After a couple of successful seasons mainly hitting Desert and G-land, the upgrade was inevitable. Sri Gaya Baru another defunct turtle boat was an enlarged replica of Wira Bakti. At fifty-eight feet she was quite comfortable and stable: a mobile home on the water that we could park at the surf spot of our choice. And that’s exactly what we did, usually doing one deep eastern exploratory per season and then posting up at Deserts with sporadic G-land strikes. A surfing trifecta that’s pretty hard to beat, even to this day. Kudos to all involved, especially Ketut, who passed away in 2010.