In the early eighties, while sailing in crude leaky boats off remote Lombok island in Indonesia, young California surfer Bill Heick and his friends stumbled across the perfect wave…a pristine barreling left reeling endlessly and empty over a shallow, live-coral reef.

As treacherous as it was beautiful, this motley crew of modern-day surf argonauts named it “Desert Point” for its dry forbidding nature. These pioneers kept their treasure off the map for more than a decade and made it their life’s mission to surf uncrowded Desert Point at the highest level possible, no matter the cost. But Paradise comes at a price. A constant balancing act between the surfing dream and the very real possibility of injury, armed robbery, maiming, and deadly cerebral malaria. And when exploration evolves into exploitation, there comes a point when the pioneers become the protectors.