Fun Seeker on The Sunseeker

When most of us think of surf trips to Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands, we think of big barrels, big turns, and high performance shortboard surfing. Which, it mostly is. But it’s also possible to find a fun and more approachable side to this world-class surf zone, as Cord’s Sean Lascelles discovered when he made the bucket-list trip to Macaronis at the end of last year, with a 6’8” Sunseeker midlength and a 5’8” twin fin in his boardbag.

On a recent pit-stop back in Cornwall in between tours for his job as a musical and live show director for Kygo, we got to grab a load of photos and footage off his hard drive and ask him all about his trip to the Mentawai Islands.

"We had just finished a fairly solid 8 months of shows including runs in Ibiza and Las Vegas, as well as a load of festivals all over the place, so the boss wanted to take 3 - 4 months off. I hadn’t really surfed all year, and my girlfriend Amanda hadn’t been to Indo before, so we thought let’s go for it. We made a trip out of it and went to Australia and New Zealand too, but the first stop on the list was Bali. I hadn’t been to Bali for a few years and I’d never been to the Ments. I fancied going somewhere else in Indo as well as Bali and so I asked Markie what he thought, and he said I should ask at Macaronis Resort as they may be doing some deals that time of year and he was right. We got a really good deal as it was going into their off season, which also meant it was a bit quieter at the camp and there were a few less boats around too."

"We started our journey from the Cayman Islands, so I think it was the longest trip I have ever done to go somewhere. It ended up being 40 hours door-to-door, so not the most direct route! We stopped in Bali for four days and stayed with old friend JJ Hendy and caught up with all the crew. Then from there it took us the best part of two days to get to Macaronis. I had wanted to go to Maccas since I was a kid watching it endlessly on surf vids in the surf shop, so I was really excited. When we arrived we couldn’t believe how much like paradise it was. Everything about it was perfect. The accommodation was great; clean and comfortable with hot showers. The food was epic every day and the staff were all legends. The other people staying there were all really nice. It was a really chilled atmosphere. My girlfriend Amanda was totally happy while I surfed all day which was a win, although the massage bill at the end was a bit more than I had planned for!

In terms of swell, we got a bit of everything; we were there for eight days and four of those days were really good. I don’t think I got it 10/10, but from what the guys were saying I got it at like a 7.5 - 8, which I was very stoked with. I felt the power of the place on one wave in particular on the biggest day. It detonated after I took off and had me walking around on the reef with what felt like a ton of bricks on my shoulders! "

"We had crazy monsoons come in for a few days with the heaviest rain I have ever seen, and it felt like the camp was going to blow down. We also got some waves at the mini point break across from the camp called “Fish Fingers” on a couple of days. It’s a fun little wave and I pushed Amanda into some sick tiny rights which was super fun.

On some of the days during our stay the in-house surf boat went off to a few other breaks in the area, but we were so happy at the camp that we didn’t leave. It was also nice to snag a few quiet waves out front when most of the other surfers went on a day trip elsewhere."

"I had pre-arranged to pick up the Sunseeker in Bali when I got there. That’s kinda’ my old faithful Cord stock model for any trip really, as it goes in anything from 2 - 8ft which is basically my comfort zone. Because I’m working away a lot I don’t get to surf all the time, and the Sunseeker is a board that you can just jump back on and pick up where you left off.

When we got to James (Hendy’s) place I asked if I could borrow a boardbag for the trip up to Macaronis and he said that Markie had actually left one there from the infamous HT’s trip they had done back in July. I was like “sweet!”. I went out to the shed to check it out and by a stroke of luck it still had three boards in it! I was respectful and only took two of the three (the other one was brand new!), one of which was the little 5’10” twin fin fish and then a more gun-style swallow tail that I didn’t end up riding. With the twinny it took me a few waves to remember how to ride a board that small again, but I got the hang of it soon enough and it went great!"

"Macaronis is a super playful wave when it’s smaller, and then can be pretty heavy when it gets bigger. I think when people there saw me with the Sunseeker they thought I was a learner, but that design was perfect for me and my lazy style of surfing in the conditions that we had there. Then when I wanted to try and do a few more turns, the twinny was a super-fun alternative.

Markie and I developed the Sunseeker design together a few years ago. The idea behind it came from a lot of time riding a board that we have on the Cord roster called the Sawn Off, which is basically a single fin mini-longboard that comes in sizes between 6’ 10” and 7’ 6”. It is really wide in the nose so you can nose ride it, and it has a longboard tail block and is quite thick in the rails. I used to love it, but started to want something that I could turn a bit easier. I also wanted to make something that was better in steeper waves but without losing the paddle power. So we pulled it in at the nose (Markie used one of Dad’s old templates for this, actually!), thinned it down in the rails a bit and made it a 2 + 1 (single and sides) which then evolved into just a thruster and ended up where it is now. It was named the Sunseeker because earlier that year I went AWOL from a tour I was on for 3 days on a mate’s boat in Perth, Western Australia, and that boat was a Sunseeker. That weekend involved a legendary boat party that was the talk of the city, no sleep, and, well, that’s another story altogether…

If any of you are considering ordering a Sunseeker or booking a trip to Macaronis, then I would urge you to order both, right now! Life’s too short and you won’t be disappointed."

Check Out The Sunseeker Here