And finally the tropical paradising starts

On Friday I was at work while the rest of Banda Aceh (and Indonesia) had started the Idul Fitri holidays.

This wasn't a bad thing at all, because while I worked other people busily oganised a boat trip to an island for the afternoon!

This is the group of swashbuckling adventurers.

Look at all those wholesome young things. Not all of them are Australian so this technically was a very important cross-cultural experience.

And these kids and their dad sent us off. I felt like we were on the Titanic's maiden voyage!

Here is a nice old boat that I saw as we left the port. I'd like to live in this, but I'd have to figure out a way of putting in a shower with hot water and high pressure. If I did find a way to do that it would be the only hot shower in Aceh so I could charge millions of rupiah for ten minutes.

Here are some poor photos of scenery along the way.

There are lots of islands around Sumatra, and most of the ones we sailed past on Friday seemed uninhabited, which means one thing: creating a sovereign nation called Sarah New Guinea! Applications for citizenship are now open!


And here is our destination island!


We jumped off the side of the boat like so...

...and swam about 30m to shore. It wasn't quite as easy to get back on the boat, but unfortunately I didn't get any photos of people being desperately pulled up the side of a slippery boat by three small Indonesian men. They were shocked to hear that one guy weighed 80kgs!

In a couple of weeks time Andrew, another AYAD who is heading home will have a going away party here. We will sail out, fill rubber dingies with supplies, drag them to shore and camp for the night! Hello malaria!

And now for the worst photo ever taken (and not immediately deleted)...

I know it's absurdly blurry, but my camera will never take a good photo of a sunset and yet I still wanted to give you an idea of how SPECTACULAR the sunsets are here. If you're a sunset kind of person you might want to visit sometime.

You'll be able to book direct flights to Sarah New Guinea very soon.