Words Stu Nettle, photos Simon Williams

It seems improbable, but Pohnpei, that verdant, reef-ringed isle in the North Pacific, has an image problem. Or more correctly it has a marketing problem - a mismatch between the waves we see in the surf media and the reality on the ground.

You see, ever since Palikir Pass was first exposed to the world, way back in the early noughties, the perception is that Pohnpei is strictly a heavy water zone. 

The aberration is understandable as every season a terrabyte of images are shot from the channel at Palikir. And always...always, it's during the swell of the year when long period power draws ribbons of water off the reef, converting it into a turret of energy pitching and careening toward the channel at frightful speed. In turn, those images saturate the surf media so it's all we ever see of the place.

But...here's a little secret: it ain't always like that.

Pohnpei's fringing reefs are all separated from land by a wide lagoon. There's no Indonesian-like convenience here. The surfing happens kilometres offshore, way out of sight from locals, and because of this a surf culture is yet to develop on Pohnpei, despite Palikir Pass having been surfed for over thirty years.

The out of sight, out of mind mentality is further aided by the island's extensive mangrove system. Which seems like curious reasoning, until you realise the island has almost no beaches, and therefore no communal meeting places by the water - as other island nations treat their strips of sand. The locals fish the lagoons and reefs, yet with no beaches there's simply no beach culture

All of which means leisure tourism, of the Mai Tai and massages on the beach variety, is unlikely to ever take hold in Pohnpei.

First morning, first day.

Palikir Pass is five kilometres down the coast from Kolonia and a kay or so out to sea. Because of its distance out of town the boats tend to stay out there for hours at a time, if not the whole day. And as such, there's no need to hurry, except in the morning when the enthusiastic are rewarded with a completely empty line up.

Ralph Dawe, first over the side...

A few tips about the wave...

Palikir Pass doesn't reward the inside player. Those folk who are congenitally programmed to hold the inside often find themselves too deep here. Because, rather than just merely bend around the pass, the best waves focus on a knuckle of reef that sits out on its own. The lines of swell peel down the outside reef before a fifty metre shutdown section creates an impasse for even the most headstrong surfer - though rumour has it that Reef McIntosh gave it a solid nudge a few years back.

On the other side of the shutdown section is the launching pad for all the better waves, and consequently it's where the savvy surfer should sit and drop anchor.

On occasion I'd paddle up the reef, enticed by those empty, spiralling barrels, but on every decent set my progress would be blocked. Before I could abort I'd see the water drain off the reef, causing the wave to stand up square where no wave had broken for fifteen minutes...and there'd be one of those patient folk calmly stroking into it.

Sean Moore is from the Gold Coast and was making his seventh trip to Pohnpei. Fella knows the reward for being patient - and he's definetely not a surf guide.

Ever been on a surf trip where women outnumber the men? No, me neither, until now. So when I stumbled upon this quintuplet drinking beer in the airport during the Port Moresby layover I was a tad surprised.

Meet (from left to right) Dookie, Kate, JM, Emma, and Amy. Three of whom were schoolyard friends, despite now living in various parts of Australia, and they'd picked up two running mates along the way. Between them they had every character trait a good surf trip needs: the creative one (Dookie), Sporty Spice (Kate), the hard charger with an attitude to match (JM), the unhurried cruiser (Emma), and the hard boiled cynic with a penchant for earnest Ben Harper songs after a few drinks (Amy).

Throw together five strong female personalities and there wasn't much space for the blokes to do typical bloke stuff. We just kind of filled in the gaps, played cameo roles between the five leads. Which was wonderfully refreshing if you were willing to share the spotlight. Fortunately they brought the laughs.

A female friend of mine often laments that women are under-represented in the surf industry and the surf media. Men make up the status quo. Yet the gender balance is changing, it's just happening slowly. Organically. From the ground on up. And the presence of these five rambunctious lasses in a faraway surf spot confirms it.

A local told me that Pohnpei is the second wettest place on Earth. In fact a few people told me that same statistic. I went looking online for verification but couldn't find anything definitive. An as yet incomplete rain survey from the inland mountains was the closest I came to confirmation.

But let's not quibble here, if you go to Pohnpei you're gonna get wet. Real wet. Soaked. Repeatedly. Fortunately the temperature is a constant 30° and sunshine is never far away so it's no inconvenience. In fact, despite the rain records - if it's not the second wetttest place on Earth it's definitely top ten - I didn't see a single open umbrella while there.

And of course wherever there's heavy rain there's myriad waterfalls. Take your pick on Pohnpei. They're everywhere. Small ones next to the road to cool down in and majestic ones that require a half day hike and a bucket of sweat as sacrifice.

Right, enough with the factoids. Time for some demonstable, unarguable, rock solid stats.

This was no strike mission, the trip was booked well in advance so it was a roll of the dice swell-wise.

In seven days on the island the crew had five days surfing out on the reef, two of those days fell into the unquestionably epic category, two scored as pretty damn good, and one day was still-way-better-than-back-home. In total that meant Dave Peterson clocked 487 lineup hours and returned to his NSW Central Coast home blissed out with a wave count of 5,263 P'Pass waves.

Or at least it felt like that...

Towards the end of the trip the swell dropped and P'Pass showed its versatility as a small wave joint. The takeoff moved in, and it also conveniently began to shift around allowing multiple entry points, while the inside still produced enough shape to build disproportionate speed.

JM, flying overhead on a smaller day.