Mentawai Islands

The Playgrounds' friendly handshake. A playful left wall that peels along the reef with enough push to feel like the Mentawais and enough forgiveness to let you settle in on day one. When the fleet chases the marquee names, Beng Beng quietly does its thing.

The islands' great safety valve, around the corner from HT's. A long, generous left wall that works from waist-high to as big as you can paddle, softer-shouldered than its neighbors and kinder to mistakes. When a macking swell shuts down half the chart, Lance's Left is where everyone meets.

The Playgrounds' performance left. E-Bay throws a steep takeoff into a wall that begs for turns, then bends into a hollow inside when the swell has south in it. Contest-grade when it is on, and one of the most reliably good waves in the north.

The name describes the view down the line: sections stacking up ahead of you like lenses. Telescopes is a long, luxurious left wall, hollow when the swell has punch, rippable always, and just far enough from the anchorages to feel earned. Many boats' favorite everyday wave.

Regularly voted the funnest wave in the world, and the voters have a point. Macaronis is a machine-made left in a jungle bay: a hooking takeoff, a wall built for turns at exactly the right speed, and a tube on the inside when it pulses. It does the same perfect thing hundreds of times a day.

The north's heavyweight right. Bankvaults stands up out of deep water and unloads onto a ledge, all lip and ledges and consequence, and it keeps its composure when the swell gets serious. The takeoff decides everything: commit or watch it go.

One of the fastest ridable waves on earth. Kandui drains down a coral shelf in one long exhale, a freight-train left where the tube is not a section but the whole wave. Making one from behind the peak to the channel is a career highlight; most visits end with a humbling instead.

Kandui's mirror twin across the channel, and for many the best right in the islands. Rifles fires long, spinning barrels down the reef edge, faster and faster the further you ride, until the wave and your nerve finish at the same instant. On its day there is nothing else like it.

The postcard of the Mentawais. HT's bends a flawless almond barrel over shallow coral in front of the Katiet palms, photogenic to the point of cliché and heavy enough to keep the pictures honest. Every serious surf traveler owes themselves one session here — and their full attention on the end section.