A fickle, fast barrelling left off north-west Sipora that stays empty because most crews take one look at it and keep going.
Suicides breaks off the north-western end of Sipora in the central Mentawai, a short boat run from Tuapejat and close in to the reefs around Simakakang. It is a left-hand wave over live coral, and the name is the honest kind rather than the marketing kind. Guides that hand out generous descriptions to half the archipelago go quiet when they reach this one, and the reason is obvious from the channel.
It is also one of the least surfed quality waves on this coast. Suicides is fickle, it needs real swell to show its best, and when that swell finally arrives most crews take one look and carry on to something with less consequence attached. That leaves it empty far more often than a wave of this calibre should be, and plenty of surfers pass through the central Mentawai for years without ever paddling out.
The wave
When it works, Suicides is a fast barrelling left that does very little easing in. Surf guides on this coast describe it as a freight train of a barrel, full throttle from the moment you stand up, and that reads as accurate rather than dramatic. The take-off puts you straight into the business end. There is little open face to set up on and no soft shoulder to bail towards, so it asks you to commit exactly when most people would rather take a look first.
It needs a decent west or south-west groundswell to get going at all, which is why it sits idle much of the year. Three to six feet is the working range and it will hold bigger. Winds from the south round through south-east to east keep it clean. Most reports favour mid to high tide, and several note that a fuller tide with more size behind it makes the barrel easier to get into, not harder. April to October is the season.
It sits about five minutes by boat south of Icelands, across the passage from Ariks, in the same cluster of reefs as Telescopes and Scarecrows. Consistency is modest by Mentawai standards, so treat it as a wave you check rather than one you plan around. There is more than one piece of reef working in this pocket of water once the swell is big enough, and not all of it carries a name everyone agrees on.
That last point is worth spelling out. Most spot guides record Suicides as a left, and the left is the wave we have described here. A couple of operator guides instead put a Suicides off nearby Awera island and call it a right, and at least one break list names a Suicides Left and a Suicides Right as separate waves, so there may well be two reefs wearing the one name. Some guides also file Suicides and Doughnuts as the same break while others count them apart. None of it matters much once you are in the water, but it is worth asking your boatman which reef you are pulling up to.
Conditions at a glance
- Wave type: Left-hand reef break
- Best swell: A decent west to south-west groundswell. It will not start without one
- Best wind: South through south-east to east
- Best tide: Mid to high. Fuller tides are the safer window over shallow coral, and several reports say the barrel is easier to make with more water in it
- Best size: Roughly three to six feet is the working range, and it holds bigger
- Season: April to October, the dry season, with the mid-year months most reliable
- Crowd: About as empty as a quality Mentawai wave gets. Counts run from nobody to fewer than ten, and when a solid groundswell is actually running most crews cruise past it for something less consequential nearby.
- Where: near Tuapejat, Sipora, Central Mentawai
Who it suits
This is an expert wave and we are not going to soften that. The reef is live coral, sharp, and shallow enough that the tide window is the difference between a good session and a long boat ride with a towel wrapped round your foot. It sits beside a passage, so expect current to run at times. Tuapejat is close for a minor patch-up, but anything serious means getting you across to Padang, and that is not quick. Add a barrel that gives nothing back if you are half a beat late and you have a wave that asks for full commitment from the first stroke.
Booties are sensible, a board you trust when it is thick is essential, and honest self-assessment matters more here than anywhere else in the cluster. If you are a competent intermediate and the coast is on, surf Scarecrows or Tikus and watch this one from the boat. Nobody thinks less of you. If you do paddle out, be comfortable in a shallow barrel on both forehand and backhand, because which one you get depends on the reef you end up sitting in front of.
How to surf Suicides with WaveBorn
Sunset Surf Villas has Suicides close by. The villa sits on the beach at Pulau Simakakang in the central Mentawai, sleeps up to six, and keeps a dedicated private boat for the nine named breaks it works, Suicides among them, none of them more than about twenty-five minutes away. That proximity matters at a wave this fickle. You can look at it on the way past, surf elsewhere while the tide fills, then come back the moment it switches on.
Both charters cover this coast too. Ombak Kabau carries up to ten guests for eleven nights and ten surf days, roaming the full Mentawai chain plus the Tello Islands and the northern route to the Hinako Islands off Nias, so it can sit wherever the swell is best. Odyssey Mentawai is our 46ft catamaran for up to eight guests, with a surf pro on board and the same archipelago-wide range. On a wave that switches on and off like this one, being able to move with the forecast is most of the job.
Trips that reach it: Sunset Surf Villas , Ombak Kabau and Odyssey Mentawai .
Nearby breaks
Suicides sits within easy reach of Icelands, Telescopes, Scarecrows and Tikus , 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
- Lance's Right : A perfect, photogenic right-hand barrel and probably the most photographed wave in Indonesia.
- Lance's Left : 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.
- 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.
- Bintangs : A short, dredging right across the channel from Lance's Left that turns on when the north wind ruins everything else in the bay.
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.