We were awoken early by filmster Don King and told to get our stuff together as the boat was docked in the harbour ready to rip. There was swell at the proposed destination but it would take about six or seven hours to get there. Between us five new passengers - myself, Jake Paterson, Mick Campbell, Danny Wills and Lee Winkler - there was so much gear it wasn’t funny. Photographer Jeff Hornbaker was amazed/alarmed at the sight of it all. When on board there was the discovery of a couple of stowaways, Todd Morcom and Strider Wasilewski, who’d apparently missed out on major swell on their trip and were required to hang around for footage purposes.

We set sail on the smoothest, bluest water I’ve ever seen. The Indies Trader, covered in its brightly coloured Polynesian paintjob must have looked a sight. Captain Martin Daly was anxious, "I just want to be there," he said, knowing that with a bit of swell the places we were to surf would be special.

Up on the bow, Willsy and Wink stood watching the flying fish scoot across the crystal for hundreds of metres. They yarned about trips past and hoped that sick waves would be found as soon as this afternoon.

The boat, maxing out at nine knots, couldn’t be pushed any harder. Martin was itching. Across the channels between islands Jake was straight into setting up some lines for trolling. On two occasions he jumped up and down as two massive sailfish meandered on past. Martin didn’t want to slow so they were left to their own devices. The trip actually sped by. We approached a group of islands and on closer inspection we could see spray coming off the backs of waves.

I climbed the crow’s nest and sat in peace gawking out over the ocean and the perfect green islands. I could see how both someone can become addicted to being at sea but at the same time could go completely mad. Martin tells me of the warring islands, even in paradise there is discontent. Humans are a stupid race when it comes down to it. We sail on to a small group of islands and pass hundreds of acres of coconut palms. I later find out that they are planted by loggers who hammered the island’s natural timber supply. I thought they looked strange in almost perfect rows. On the left is a nice righthander, it looks OK but we sail on around through the islands to another channel that Martin says will be cranking. On arrival it looks small but on closer inspection the lefthander is about three foot plus and filth, while on the other side a right cranked all the way around and into a small bay. Myself and Mick, being goofy, surf the left on our own while all the others go the right. Mick and I went wave for wave non-stop for about an hour and a half. We kept exclaiming how good the whole idea was and that very few had probably surfed it before. We were stoked and appreciative, talking of how in 10 to 15 years’ time we’ll be sitting around over a few ales remembering how awesome the whole concept was.