Waves

We have been sailing up the east side of Sumatra without setting foot on land there.  Rather, we have visited the small islands off the coast.  Several of these islands have small, rather isolated populations, but many are uninhabited with beautiful sandy beaches, coral reefs, and tropical fish.  Yesterday we stopped at Pulau Asok which is part of the Banyak Islands, and it had all of those things.   In the background you can see several other islands.

I have been on many islands in the Caribbean as well as Hawaii that have beautiful sandy beaches, but they also tend to have hotels, restaurants, roads, and lots of people.  It was amazing to be on a completely pristine, unspoiled island.  And we could see many more as we (sadly) sailed away.  Even more sadly, when we returned to the ship, we had to turn in our snorkel gear because we would not need it again.  

The reef was full of tropical fish:  angel fish, zebra fish, schools of baby fish, and a blue-green species I don't the name of.  We were warned not to touch the poisonous spiky starfish which is even more dangerous to reef life.  I don't touch anything when I snorkel, but I saw a beautiful sixteen armed something with bright blue/purple stripes on each arm.  I thought it might be an octopus, but it turns out that starfish can have more than five arms.  I was lucky enough to see (but not touch) a crown of thorns starfish.  Beautiful but deadly.

The next day we finally landed on Sumatra, visiting Banda Aceh, the city at the far northwest of Indonesia.  On the day after Christmas in 2004, there was a 9.2 Richter underwater earthquake off the coast of Aceh that did a lot of damage.  But the real damage came afterward when a tsunami devastated all of the coastlines of the Indian Ocean, killing over 200,000 people in fourteen countries.  Banda Aceh got the worst of the tsunami with waves over one hundred feet high only a few minutes after the earthquake since it was so close to the epicenter.

We visited the museum dedicated to the tsunami as well as a 2,600 ton boat that was torn from it mooring at the port and carried five kilometers inland by the waves.  The boat, which landed on and destroyed an entire neighborhood, has also been made into a museum.  Finally, we visited the central mosque which was the closest building to the sea to survive.  Clearly, a sign.

And that was our last stop in Indonesia.  After one more day at sea, we will stop at Malacca in Malaysia, and then arrive in Singapore.