http://www.surfline.com/surfnews/article_bamp_400_v03.cfm?id=17806
Martin claims that the Mentawai surf industry is colluding with officials just to spoil his "surfin' lifestyle"...How terrible for him! This sort of resonates... sort of.... until you actually think about it. Because Martin has the biggest fleet in the Mentawais by far. About $7 million invested and counting.....60 mouths to feed and a juggernaut of stuff to cart around the planet.... Not exactly "surfing the earth lightly".... hardly feral.... anyone who just wanted the lifestyle could sail around on a small yacht to enjoy remote surf spots and remain invisible..... Martin is dreaming about it.... but the reality is that he is hard at work promoting a 'new' secret destination. Keeping Secrets is an expensive 8 page advertorial.
Is Martin about to repeat his act in the Marshall Islands? His new "secret" wave mine...... He is paying big bucks to leak the word out and all you have to do is a quick Google on "Marshall Islands" to come up with this. http://www.visitmarshallislands.com/pdf/newsletter/2006_feb.pdf
Martin claims that the Mentawai surf industry is colluding with officials just to spoil his "surfin' lifestyle"...How terrible for him! This sort of resonates... sort of.... until you actually think about it. Because Martin has the biggest fleet in the Mentawais by far. About $7 million invested and counting.....60 mouths to feed and a juggernaut of stuff to cart around the planet.... Not exactly "surfing the earth lightly".... hardly feral.... anyone who just wanted the lifestyle could sail around on a small yacht to enjoy remote surf spots and remain invisible..... Martin is dreaming about it.... but the reality is that he is hard at work promoting a 'new' secret destination. Keeping Secrets is an expensive 8 page advertorial.
Is Martin about to repeat his act in the Marshall Islands? His new "secret" wave mine...... He is paying big bucks to leak the word out and all you have to do is a quick Google on "Marshall Islands" to come up with this. http://www.visitmarshallislands.com/pdf/newsletter/2006_feb.pdf
Seems he is pretty close to the government officials out in the Pacific. Bet they are hoping someone will eventually build resorts. What emerges from the article is what Joel Patterson politely referred to as Daly's "duality"....something is haunting him..... As Martin puts it himself: "You're either making money or surfing perfect waves alone". Martin's biggest secret? The inner turmoil that haunts him? He hates himself for doing what he loves to do. He is a surf circus ringmaster, a showman, not a mellow yachtie type who just wants to cruise and surf. Jack felt much the same back in 1995 when he confessed ...."we find 'em virgins and we leave 'em whores" Both men are tapped into a rich vein of surf industry money and it is addictive. Good luck to them. Jack was proud of it and ready for more. Martin seems a bit conflicted and unsure of what to do next. Given the state of the US economy and his overheads, this is no surprise.
Martin sees the changes in Mentawai as "freedom versus the establishment" and calls a group of small resort owners a "Capitalist Pig element"...... a pretty heavy statement given most of the resort partners are conservative Muslims. And then there is the glaring contradiction that any insider will confirm.
Martin Daly is the biggest capitalist in the Mentawai surf industry. He is a celebrity now and one has to wonder where he stands. Is he siding with feral surfers? Not a chance! Does he just feel that owns any place that he has the good fortune to surf before everyone else? Not really.... so why is he throwing all his efforts into trying to sabotage the Mentawai Governments new tourism policies? The small but growing Mentawai surf industry see Martin using the global surf industry heavyweights (the surf "establishment") to back up his continued tax free plunder of the Mentawais.
The surf trade capitalists are about the only people who can afford his rates.... but the Mentawai resort owners would never call them 'pigs' right? The fact is that an increasing number of the big brands are booking resorts rather than boats. It is way more comfortable and flexible.... the writing is on the wall. The boats were the pioneers but they will soon move on looking for more and more isolated places. That theme saturates the Secrets article from beginning to end.
In May 2008, Martin went against his better judgement and made an extraordinarily heavy handed foray into the complex jungle of West Sumatran politics. His ill fated boat owner group WBC (no, it is not the World Boxing Council), spent up big, romanced top brass and the elite in Padang only to find that they trod on so many toes in the islands that there was a student uprising against them. Martin himself suffered the brunt of the anger after he appeared on local television saying that he thought the Mentawai people were "very primitive".
It is a tragedy that the money Martin invested in this fiasco was wasted on grandstanding rather than used to support infrastructure and community programs in the islands. The Mentawai resort owners have invested on land and worked on navigation the regulatory maze that is mandatory to get a resort license. They pay taxes and employ locals. The foreign boat owners operates like freeloaders and pay no tax on their profits and no VAT on their services. How sustainable is that model? Who will win this battle of wills? Stay tuned for updates.
BREAKING NEWS
Visit Global Surfers website for the first ever public debate between Martin Daly and Rick.
http://globalsurfers.ning.com/forum/
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