BENAK BORE – GONE CHOCO
Kyron Rathbone loves chocolate so dearly and Fanatic got him a Golden Ticket to a new kind of Chocolate factory. Cadbury Rights, Toblerone Rights or Snickers Lefts…what a thrill! That’s a tasty new paddle surf adventure in the Borneo Jungle right there.
WORDS & PHOTOS – Antony ‘Yep’ Colas
This feature originally appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of SUP International. Print and digital subscriptions for readers worldwide are available HERE.)
It’s easy to get confused between Bono and Benak tidal bores. Benak is Malaysia while Bono is Indonesia but the people are both from Malay culture and similarities abound. I’ve been lucky to become the first surfer on Benak as well as on Bono, I mean standing up surfer, dug-out canoes have been riding those undular and breaking bores for centuries. After six trips on Bono since Sept 2010, I decided to go Benak last October for my third trip there. The project was to explore the entire length of the bore and shoot unique slow mo’ views from a paramotor.
In July 2011, I had to opportunity to follow the bore with a chopper that was provided by Alfred Jabu, chief Deputy Minister of Sarawak. Two years later, here we are riding three hours each afternoon along about 45 km of breaking waves. Although the riverbed has changed quite significantly, there is a surprise in a new set of three sections of twenty minute breaking waves. The Sri Aman town sections were much more fun, shorter rides but blessed by some powerful pockets and amazing glass conditions. After three hours of easy cruising, you’re done; especially if you’ve been riding early mornings for an additional half hour before brekky.
Australian Kyron Rathbone came from his new seasonal home in Siargao, Philippines to perform his SUP skills. Obviously, riding 1-5ft bore waves for a Tasmanian nutter like Kyron, who regularly surfs the beastly open water spots like Shipstern and Pedra Blanca is anything but scary. But Kyron truly got the bore bug, enjoying the brown water rides as if they were so much cocoa flavoured milk. With no airdrops into the bowl to steal his attention, Kyron became quite creative with what you can do on a wave riding for such a long time. On day two, he broke the Benak record with a 28 minute exhilarating ride at “Cadbury Rights” only being stopped short by lightning which all but struck him down! Weather did not play on our side this time and two afternoons were plagued by wild thunderstorms, messing up the game for an hour.
We actually got cold, cruising at 15 knots against brutal tropical rain.To tell you the truth, we did not see any crocodiles on the river, maybe one ahead, cruising near the riverbank, maybe…Our main disappointment was that Belgium Tom De Dorlodot could not manage to bring his own paramotor through Brussels airport since it got blocked by the company being labelled as a ‘dangerous item’ because of potential fuel tracks. We struggled badly to rent a local paramotor which turned out to be a wreck. After much engine work, Tom finally managed to take-off twice to do some shooting which came out good on screen but nothing like a full-on bore scan flight that was originally planned. Which was yet bad news and good news because that means I will have to go back. I already feel pretty excited about doing more research and rides there. Combining two of the twenty minute sections is possible which means a forty five minute record is doable with the right weather, the right banks, the right itinerary, the right board… SUP
“ With no airdrops into the bowl to steal his attention, Kyron became quite creative with what you can do on a wave riding for such a long time ”