A long, consistent left that wraps down the reef at Katiet in three sections, from a shallow barrel up top to rippable walls on the inside.
Also known as Lances Left.
Lance's Left sits at the southern end of Sipora, on the western side of the bay at Katiet, around the corner from the wave most people fly in for. Lance's Right, or HT's, gets the photographs. The left gets the surf time. It is one of the most consistent waves in the Mentawai, a long wall that bends down the reef and keeps giving well after your legs have stopped asking politely.
Ask around the fleet and you will hear the same thing. This is the wave people end up surfing most. It picks up almost anything the Indian Ocean sends this way, it tolerates a wider range of wind than most reefs out here, and it has enough take-off spots that a full lineup does not feel like a queue. Goofy-footers in particular tend to lose whole days to it.
The wave
The reef runs like a point, and the swell wraps around it in three fairly predictable stages. Up the top is the Cobra, a short, intense section that stands up and throws almost straight away and gets very shallow on low tide. Plenty of guides treat it as a break of its own, a hundred metres or so up the reef, and on the right day it will run through and join onto the rest of the wave. Below that is the main take-off, the one most people paddle for, where the lines arrive already groomed and the entry is straightforward. From there the wave runs down the reef into a softer, fatter shoulder on the inside.
At head high the take-off is friendly by Mentawai standards. You get a clean drop, a long peeling wall built for turns, and usually a couple of tube sections that open and shut depending on how the swell is lining up. The rides are long. A good one will carry you a long way down the reef and leave you paddling back with your arms and legs both complaining.
Push it past six foot and the character changes. The take-off moves deeper and steeper, the faces open right up, and the barrel sections get faster and less forgiving, with some of them simply not makeable. Tide matters as much as size. A rising mid tide with a south to south-west swell and an east wind is the combination worth waiting for, because low tide drains water off the reef and the top end in particular gets genuinely shallow.
Conditions at a glance
- Wave type: Left-hand reef point break
- Best swell: South to south-west groundswell
- Best wind: East to north-east offshore
- Best tide: Mid to high, best on a rising mid
- Best size: Chest high to double overhead, roughly 3 to 10ft
- Season: April to October for size, with smaller fun swells November to March
- Crowd: It draws a crowd: there is a resort on the beach out front and charter boats anchor in the bay, so ten to twenty five surfers in season is normal. The spread of take-off spots means it rarely feels as tight as those numbers suggest, and localism is not an issue.
- Where: Sipora, Central Mentawai
Who it suits
Confident intermediates have a good time here, and that is not sales talk. The main peak is one of the more manageable take-offs on this stretch of coast, there is a channel to sit in, and several peaks mean you are not fighting one person for one spot. If you can handle a solid head high reef wave and you are comfortable getting caught inside, you will get your share.
That said, it is live coral, it is shallow in places, and it does not soften as it grows. Once it is overhead and running properly, the Cobra section is for experienced surfers only, and the whole reef turns unfriendly on a dropping tide. Beginners should not be out there. Bring booties, find out where the keyhole in the reef is before you paddle out, and be honest with yourself about which section you sit on.
How to surf Lance's Left with WaveBorn
Two of our trips reach it. Ombak Kabau is our live-aboard charter, up to ten guests, eleven nights and ten surf days, roaming the entire Mentawai chain and following the swell rather than sitting in one region. If Lance's Left is the wave that is on, that is where we anchor, and we can stay on it for as long as it keeps delivering.
Odyssey Mentawai is our 46ft catamaran, up to eight guests, with a surf pro on board. She covers the Mentawai and the quieter Tello Islands to the north, so there is somewhere to go when the bay at Katiet fills up. Having someone aboard who knows which of the three sections is working on a given tide counts for more here than at most breaks, because the gap between the main peak and the top of the reef is not a small one.
One thing worth saying plainly, because people search for it: we do not run a camp at Katiet and we have no accommodation at Lance's Left. If you want to surf this wave with us you surf it from a boat, which we would argue is the better way to do it anyway. You are not locked into one bay for a week, and when the wind turns onshore here you simply move.
Trips that reach it: Ombak Kabau and Odyssey Mentawai .
Nearby breaks
Lance's Left sits within easy reach of Lance's Right (HT's), The Cobra and Bintangs , which is what makes this part of the archipelago so productive: if the wind or swell does not suit one reef, another is usually working a short ride away.
More breaks in Central Mentawai
- Telescopes : A long, versatile left off Sipora that works across a huge range of sizes, and a favourite of ours.
- Tikus : The uncrowded wave that breaks straight out front at Sunset Surf Villas, checkable from the deck.
- Icelands : A left-hand reef off north-west Sipora that swings from a mellow head-high wall to one of the heaviest big-wave barrels in the Mentawai.
- Scarecrows : A long, underrated left off North Sipora that runs over 200 yards into the Curry Bowl, one of the central Mentawai's most consistent waves.
- Suicides : A fickle, fast barrelling left off north-west Sipora that stays empty because most crews take one look at it and keep going.
- Ombak Tidur : A sectiony right-hand reef off North Sipora that picks up swell on the smaller days and rarely carries a crowd.
- Doughnuts : A fickle, expert-only left off North Sipora that barrels hard over shallow coral on the rare days it switches on.
Conditions here are a guide, not a guarantee. Our crew reads the swell, wind and tide each morning and puts you on the break that matches your surfing that day. See the full Mentawai surf spots guide or browse every break we surf.