How Searching For Surf in Indonesia Nearly Cost Travis Potter His Life – Surfer Magazine

Twenty years ago, well before the invention of GoPro, Instagram or the YouTube Vlog, Travis Potter, Brett Schwartz and Timmy Potter booked one-way flights to Indonesia to get lost in the jungle. Literally. First, they went for a month. Then for three. Next thing you know they were hiring a local fishing boat to drop them off at totally remote surf spots with only camping gear, basic supplies, live animals (seriously!) and their bulky cameras in tow.

Potter and crew turned those feral trips into films, like “Second Thoughts”, which is one of surfing’s greatest underground flicks. But those trips came at a cost. Potter eventually ended up with a serious case of Malaria, and Turner got a staph infection in his brain, which caused them both to re-think the way they traveled.

Click play for a behind-the-scenes look at Potter’s late-90’s and early-2000’s adventures in the latest episode of “O’Riginals.”