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 eep in the Indian Ocean, about 140 miles off the southeastern coast of Java, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake violently deformed the earth's crust more than a mile beneath the sea.
It was 1:18 a.m., June 3, 1994 ... Java time.
From the cold black depths out at the edge of the Java Trench, the resulting displaced water mass created an immense energy pulse that rushed outward and upward at an incredible speed to eventually build into a horrifying 40 to 50 foot high wave that would take the lives of over 200 people as they drowned thrashing in the dark in a rushing, roiling wall of sea water mixed with dead sea creatures, sand, coral heads, rocks, vegetation, tree trunks, housing structures, chickens, pigs, boats, and for some, their own sleeping bags.
But for the moment, the tsunami was still far out to sea, racing in the night towards the shore at over 200 miles per hour ... undetected.
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 ince 1984, I have traveled to the islands of Indonesia to stay at Bobby's camp to surf G-land, perhaps the longest, hollowest,
most perfect left point break in the world. On the evening of June 3rd,1994, I was fast asleep, having earlier just arrived in camp after traveling all day.
I hadn't even unpacked my bags. I'd just put my boards in the rack behind my hut when I arrived and took out my toothbrush and my copy of MOBY DICK (pirates were chasing the Pequod thru the Java Straight).
My hut was out on the point; the closest one to the water.
Sometime around 2 a.m, I woke up to a very loud roar and the sound of moving water. Lots of water.
I remember thinking that it was not the right tide for me to be hearing this and recall thinking that the next day was sure to have big surf. Little did I know.
As the roar grew louder, I sat up inside my mosquito net, and just as I did, a churning wall of water blew through my hut.
By some estimates, the wave may have measured 50 feet in
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height when it originally broke a half mile out to sea on the coral reef that surrounds the southern tip of Java. But tsunamis are much longer in wave-length than in height, and this long wave length essentially creates the effect of a tidal bore, though in an order of magnitude larger. Much larger  .
The force of the of oncoming water had ground up and killed every living creature in its path. When the surge wall hit my hut, it bent a ten foot high tree over my shack, collapsing the roof, and trapped me, wrapped up like a bug in my mosquito net, under twenty feet of water.
I had no idea what was happening. I fantasized that Krakatoa had erupted again and the earth had split open and the Indian Ocean was spilling into a big crack in the earth. All I could do for the moment was hold my breath and try to relax. I couldn't move or breath anyway, and I remember thinking this was a pretty lousy way to go, all wrapped up in a mosquito net in stinking, churning white water with a tree on top of me.
I imagined holding onto one of my surfboards while I was under water to free me of my trap and shooting toward the surface to get air and paddeling to the nearest volcano top.
In reality, I began to panic. I tried to suck air thru my teeth out of the bubbles of putrid grimy foam engulfing me.
After three attempts and no oxygen, I knew I was close to losing it all and began ripping and clawing, struggling to free myself. And just then, the water reversed direction and began flowing back out to sea, lifting up the tree and releasing me from under my hut. I got my head above the surging water, took a breath, and as it rushed by, my surfboard hit me in the leg on its way out to sea. I grabbed it and started running into the jungle, screaming "grab a board, grab a board!"
 veryone's experience was different that night. Some young Australian professional surfers in the camp went to bed apparently dreaming of tigers; G-land's other name is tiger camp for the famed man-eating big Javanese cats that share the jungle with us. These poor guys got washed out of their beds and into the sharp thorns of the elephant bamboo surrounding their huts. It was a dark, loud roaring, skin ripping, wet mauling they got, and when the wave receeded back into the bay, they were screaming "TIGER! TIGER!" They thought they were being eaten alive.
Some of them went immediately into shock and had to be evacuated back to Australia, where they received a hero's welcome for surviving a tsunami that killed 246 people in the Javanese jungle.
My friend Kevin Komic, who was sleeping in the hut next to mine, had always had nightmares as a child; he would bolt out of bed and start running. His parents would have to chase him down and bring him home, sweating and frightened, but he'd never realized consciously what the cause of his recurring nightmare was, until this night.
On this evening, he sat up in bed, and stared into the darkness in the direction of that horrible sound racing towards him and he knew all his fears had finally come true. After all these years, it was a tidal wave that had woke him up those nights, and it was now a tidal wave that blasted him out the back of his hut like a rag doll and into the jungle, stripping him of every wordly possession he'd brought to camp ... but gratefully sparing his life.
I personally don't know how long I was under that wave. I think though, that if I wasn't a surfer, I wouldn't have been able to hold my breath for as long as I did. I also wouldn't have been there. Fortunately, no surfers in the camp died that night, but tragically more than 200 Indonesian fishermen and campers did. Hundreds more were injured. Destruction along the coast of southeastern Java was wide spread.
Dawn arrived all twisted, broken, muddy and horrible. At first light we surveyed the damage. There were some absurd sights. Brand new surfboards were broken in ten places, and stuck fifteen feet up in the trees, fifty feet back in the jungle. All the huts on the point and in the low lying river beds were destroyed and personal items along with dead lobsters and sharks and huge boulders and broken boats were strewn for miles along grajagan bay.
Some of the best surf spots are located within the Pacific ring of fire. Volcanic and seismic activity will surely continue to affect these regions. It is a humbling reminder to experience a tsunami, one I keep with me every time I enter the ocean. It is a powerful world, beyond our control and I feel very privledged to visit her wonders.
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