Meet Brett de Laporte

I met this guy, Brett de Laporte, early this May.

‘I have Italian extraction. My mother is from Italy, but I was born and grew up in South Africa. But now I live in Australia. I have Italian passport, but I cannot speak Italian,” he explained himself when I asked about his unique last name.

I was taking pictures and he was surfing. The surf was OK but this guy was the only surfer in the water that morning. He was surfing the right flank of The Peak. You know this surf is rarely taken. Though it’s just a paddle away from The Peak, but not many people take it. This is probably the first time I saw someone surf this spot. I don’t know why he surfed The Flank, and left The Peak empty.

Later some other surfers came out, and they took The Peak, but this guy kept on surfing The Flank. He ruled The Flank and enjoyed it for himself until he got enough. He was a good surfer.

Then he came out of the water and went straight to the house by the surf where he was staying. No wonder I didn’t see his bike parked by the beach like other surfers' bike. Staying in a house by the surf, you don’t need to ride a bike though, unless you are going to surf away.

As I see that he was staying at the house, and I myself have often hung out there, and I know the man who owns the house, and the attendants, I then decided to come to see him.

“Hey mister. I’ve taken some pictures of you,” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Can I see them?” he looked enthusiastic.

“OK.”

Then I turned my camera on and showed him the pictures in the screen one by one. I had taken a lot of pictures of him, and he was interested in some of them.

“We may surf Mandiri before we left,” he said. “I wonder if you can take my pictures at Mandiri, maybe on Friday, or Saturday. “I’ll give you some money,” he said.

“OK. My pleasure,” I said.

The next day when I took pictures at The Leftover, I saw two surfers surfing the right flank (The Leftover is the left flank of The Peak, so you can see one another).

And when I moved to the right flank, I found that it was this guy and his friend surfing. I took his pictures again, and this time together with his friend’s. And when they had finished surfing, I saw them the pictures, again, just like the day before, but this time they copied the pictures to their laptop. And after finished copying, Brett gave me Rp.6.000.

I bet he knew that I needed one more liter of gas to go on with my bike. 

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