The uncrowded wave that breaks straight out front at Sunset Surf Villas, checkable from the deck.
Tikus is not the most famous wave in the Mentawais and that is exactly why it is one of our favourites. It breaks directly in front of Sunset Surf Villas on Pulau Simakakang, which means you can check it with a coffee in your hand from the bar deck before deciding whether to paddle out.
It is the wave that quietly makes a trip. While the marquee breaks draw boats and crowds, Tikus regularly delivers fun, empty sessions to whoever happens to be staying at the villa.
The wave
Tikus offers both a left and a right off the reef, with a forgiving take-off compared with the heavier waves in the region. On a small to medium swell it is a friendly, playful wave that suits long sessions and plenty of experimenting.
With more size it gains real punch and holds its shape well, particularly on a mid to high tide with the morning glass-off. It is not a wave that will humble you the way Kandui or HTs can, which is a large part of its appeal.
Because it is right on the doorstep, it is also the wave you surf twice a day without thinking about it, at dawn before the boat leaves and again at sunset when the wind drops.
Conditions at a glance
- Wave type: Reef break
- Best swell: S to SW swell
- Best wind: Light offshore or glassy mornings
- Best tide: Mid to high
- Best size: 2ft to 6ft
- Season: Year-round, best April to October
- Crowd: Very quiet. It breaks in front of our villas and rarely draws a crowd.
- Where: Pulau Simakakang, Central Mentawai
History and reputation
Tikus has no discovery story, and the honest thing is to say so. The story that opened the Mentawais to everyone else starts in March 1991, when an Australian surfer named Lance Knight spent a fortnight alone on a right-hander off Katiet in south Sipora and then met Martin Daly, whose boat the Indies Trader was working the islands on a salvage job. Daly named the wave Lance's Right, and photographs from a 1992 charter carrying Tom Carroll, Ross Clarke-Jones and Martin Potter did the rest. Tikus is nowhere in that story. No source records who first surfed it or when. Tikus is Indonesian for rat, and English-language guides list it as The Rat, but none of them explain the name.
Its reputation was built quietly, and mostly from land. Simakakang is a small island about fifteen minutes by boat from Tuapejat, the regency capital, and the wave breaks close enough in that anyone staying on that beach checks it from the sand before breakfast rather than pulling up in a boat. That is a different relationship than a passing charter gets, and it shows in the crowd ratings, which sit at the bottom of the scale in every guide that bothers to list the spot.
What Tikus is known for now is being the answer on a difficult day. Guides describe it as the pick when the main spots are maxing out, and as a break that takes a wind with south in it better than the exposed reefs nearby. The trade is consistency. Every guide that scores it marks it average or below, and more than one notes it needs a bit more swell than Icelands, just around the corner, before it switches on.
Who it suits
Everyone from improvers to advanced surfers. It is one of the few genuinely world-class-region waves that a less experienced surfer can enjoy without anxiety, while still being fun for good surfers on the right day.
It is particularly good for mixed groups and families, where not everyone wants to be dropped into a heavy reef barrel first thing in the morning.
Surfing Tikus well
Leave the gun in the bag
Most people pack for the Mentawais as though every wave is Lance's Right, then find the board they want is the one they ride at home. Tikus is usually shoulder high or smaller even in the main season, and it peels through sections rather than throwing one big lip, so an everyday shortboard, a fish or a mid-length will get you far more waves than a stiff step-up. It is a good longboard wave too. Keep the bigger board handy for a solid south-west swell, because it does stand up and get hollow.
Sit up at the top of the reef
The wave runs through several sections, and the pull is to sit down the line where the wall looks softer and the drop looks kinder. Do that and you get the fat part of every wave while sitting in the way of everyone coming through. Sit up at the top, where the reef first stands the swell up. Then pick a mark on land, a palm or a roofline, and check it every few waves. The currents through this part of Sipora are described as strong and hard to predict, so a fixed mark beats a feeling for where you were.
Check the swell before you check the tide
Tikus is the least consistent wave in its own neighbourhood. It needs more swell than Icelands next door before it switches on, so on a small day it can be lifeless while the breaks around it are working. Once there is swell, the tide does the rest. Low water thins the reef out and the inside turns mean out of proportion to how gentle the wave looks from the beach, so wait for the push. Wind is the last piece. This corner takes a southerly better than the exposed breaks do, which is why it is worth walking down for a look on a day the forecast has written off.
Do not let the easy one make you casual
The mistake at Tikus is relaxing. Because it is friendly next to its neighbours, people surf it without booties, push off the bottom in the shallows and paddle out over live coral without a thought. The bottom is sharp coral and rock, the inside is shallow, and help is a long way off. Real medical care means a boat back to Tuapejat and then hours more to Padang, and a coral graze goes bad fast in this heat. Wear booties, take the deep line out rather than walking across the reef, and carry antiseptic so you can clean every cut the moment you are in.
How to surf Tikus with WaveBorn
Tikus breaks in front of Sunset Surf Villas, so guests there simply walk down and paddle out. That is the single biggest advantage of the villa: a quality wave with no boat ride and almost no one on it.
Our charters also surf it when passing through central Mentawai, and it sits within the villa's wider cluster of nine named breaks, all inside a twenty-five minute boat ride.
Trips that reach it: Sunset Surf Villas , Ombak Kabau and Odyssey Mentawai .
Nearby breaks
Tikus sits within easy reach of Icelands, Telescopes, Ombak Tidur and Scarecrows , 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.
- Suicides : A fickle, fast barrelling left off north-west Sipora that stays empty because most crews take one look at it and keep going.
- 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.