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| The sun setting on Pulau Lasia |
For the first few days after leaving Sabang, we had another pair of hands helping out, a Czechoslovakian chap, Petr. He had crossed over from Malaysia on another boat, asked if we could take him further down and drop him off somewhere on the main island. He is making his way around the world on a bicycle! He needed to get onto Sumatra to carry on down the island before trying to find a boat that will take him over to Java. His whole plan is to circumnavigate without planes, trains, buses or cars. Quite a prospect methinks. We thoroughly enjoyed his company for those few days and speculated how wonderful it would be to have those extra hands to help us across the Indian but he's going the other way and well, so far, we've managed on our own.
As we work our way southwards down the western coast of Sumatra, we have found some amazing spots.
We continue to see a lot of evidence of the 2004 tsunami. The charts are no longer accurate, islands have appeared and disappeared, depths have changed and I doubt that the charts were spot on to begin with. When one thinks that islands well north of Phuket were hit badly, then the northern part of Sumatra being the worst at the epicentre, and now we are well south of that and still the devastation and destruction here was immense. One wonders if some areas will ever fully recover.
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| A foundation and roof is all that's left of this home |
We stopped at the village of Labuhanbaja on Pulau Simelu, where we walked around the village meeting the friendly, smiling faces. We felt a little like the Pied Piper with our entourage of children following behind. There was much evidence of flattened homes, bared concrete foundations and ruins and many houses still being reconstructed.
Our next stop was the small, uninhabited island of Pulau Lasia. Magic! What a beautiful place; fine white white sandy beaches, crystal clear turquoise waters, coconut palms by the thousands, bright coloured new coral formations and just generally, one of the most gorgeous anchorages ever. We, along with Zoa, had a braai (BBQ) one of the nights while watching a magnificent sunset. What more could we ask?
PHOTO GALLERY:
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| Leaving Sabang with the construction of Kilometre Zero monument from the sea |
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| Six lovely girls came to visit us |
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| At anchor in Labuhanbaja |
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| A little artwork on a rebuilt house |
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| Pulau Lasia |
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| A BBQ with Mick and Janice off Zoa |
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| There were so few shells around that these little hermit crabs had to hide in a flower! |
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| Fisherman from the next island came to visit |
2 comments:
The two finger sign? I like to think it still means peace. And wouldn't it be nice if the world was peaceful!
P.S Looks like you're having a good time. It was nice meeting you at Sabang. Safe and happy sailing!
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