We left Pulau Weh in the early hours of Sunday morning, 2am, and arrived at Langkawi at 8.30pm Monday night, not as fast as we were hoping but still averaging 6.3 knots. There were a lot of big cargo ships around us on the trip but fortunately we only had to change course for a couple of them. The last hour was a little hairy as we had failed to beat the setting sun and found ourselves in the dark dodging the dozens of local fishing boats as we headed into the anchorage. After negotiating our way through several unlit yachts in the anchorage we managed to anchor safely before falling into bed for some much needed sleep.

The next day we were in heaven! After a slow start we headed in to the beach and off to a Japanese bakery called The Loaf where we indulged in the first western food we had come across in 6 months, Smoked Salmon and capers for Jay and a delicious Club Sandwich for me. Then it was off to check in to Malaysia, apart from the Harbour Master choosing that day to have a long lunch everything went smoothly. That night we celebrated our return at another restaurant called Tapaz where we toasted each other with a decent beer instead of the terrible Bintang we had been subjected in Indonesia. On our way back to the Makani Kai we found a Duty Free open where we were finally able to buy some wine, spirits and decent beer, the Makani Kai is no longer the dry boat she has been for the last couple of months! Heaven! On return to the tender we found that our friends Raku had finally arrived and going via their boat we celebrated their return with a bottle of red before heading back to our beds for another good night's sleep.

It's been a nice return to Langkawi, friends we have not seen for some time have been located and a day spent at Rebak Marina yesterday was full of socialising. We caught up with the crews of Aja and Glayva who we spent time with in Sumatra, they returned to Langkawi before us. Lots of boats from the Sail Indonesia rally are in the marina, some were on their boats while others were off doing some overland travel. We met up with Allan and Mary on Investigator II, Dave and Judy on Freebird and also Mike and Carole on Sauvage with their new baby girl Charlise, so much has happened in 6 months! It was great to hear the stories of others travels as most of them have been overland, we've been given ideas on where to go, where to stay and what to do! I am very excited and looking forward to our trip overland. We have booked into Rebak Marina from the 1st of November for a month and should fly out shortly thereafter.

In the meantime our time should be filled with a bit of boat maintenance with some fun thrown in. It's nice to be back.

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What a great way to finish our 6 months in Sumatera, tucked between Iboih Beach on Pulau Weh and Pulau Rubiah on a safe mooring with access to great snorkelling and decent restaurants! It's been strange to be back in a tourist area where, although it is Muslim, they recognise that tourism is a good money spinner and cater accordingly with cold Bintang (not our favourite drop but beggars can't be choosers!). Pulau Weh is a popular dive destination and while further South in the surf areas there seems to be an excess of Aussie's in this area we are outnumbered by Europeans. They seem to be doing a lot of work to 'regrow' the reef in this area and it is the first place in Indonesia where they seem to be taking steps to stop the annihilation of the fish population. Here fishermen can troll and line fish but there is no netting allowed. The reward is an abundance of fish life to be seen when snorkelling.

We arrived here on the 4th of October in time to go to shore for a feed at Mamas, fried chicken and chips all round with a couple of cold Bintang, the closest thing to Western food we have eaten in a restaurant for a while. The next day we decided to undertake a walk to 'The Monument of Zero Kilometre of Indonesia Republic' which is the westernmost point of Indonesia. There is an odd monument there topped with a statue of the mythical Garuda bird. We took off in our inflatable planning to tie up on a jetty we had seen nearby and then to walk the 4 kilometres to the monument. We spend our time in Indonesia trying to avoid officials or any kind of military as they are generally the ones that demand money from us etc. so imagine our surprise when we tied up on the jetty and walked up the road and found that we had unwittingly walked into a military zone! A couple of anxious soldiers in civvies approached us and upon being told what we wanted to do, had rapid conversation with each other before deciding that it would be best for them to take us to their boss. Up the hill we went to see the boss dressed in his camouflage gear, upon hearing we wanted to walk to Zero Kilometre they all had a great laugh, (no one walks anywhere here), gave us their approval and waved us on our way. It turned out to be a long, hot walk up and down hills, people were stopping to offer us lifts in the back of their trucks and some stopped to have their photos taken with the silly tourists. I'm not sure who was the bigger attraction us or the monument. A well deserved dinner at Cafe Olala (ooh la la) followed.

Although our visas didn't run out until the 10th we decided to head into Sabang on the 6th to get our check out underway. You never know in Indonesia how easy or hard something is going to be and if it will be quick or slow. We hired a car with driver for the day hoping that if we got everything done we would be able to fit in a little bit of sightseeing. Into Mamas for a banana pancake breakfast and we were on our way. Our driver was very knowledgeable and at all the twists and turns in one of the best roads we have encountered in Indonesia was able to tell us how many tourists and locals had died or been maimed in car and motorbike accidents on some of the treacherous corners, very reassuring when one is not wearing a seatbelt! But our driver had been to driving school (he showed us his credentials) and we soon worked out that if he wasn't speaking he drove fast but when he was talking he slowed down, suffice to say the conversation flowed easily AND constantly! We headed straight into Sabang stopping at a couple of lookouts on the way.

First stop, the Harbour Master which was our first strike, the Harbour Master and everyone else who could do the paperwork had gone elsewhere. They told us to go to immigration first and then try back. Into immigration we went and before long to our surprise we could hear them stamping our passports, they even post-dated it for us as we had until the 10th on our visa. We were asked if we had any 'souvenirs' for him (which we didn't) but no other money was asked for! Pleasant surprise number one, on to Customs. Customs didn't appear to know why we were there to see them, on a blank piece of paper they got us to write our boat name, Captains name, next port of call and the date we were leaving and sent us on our way. Pleasant surprise number two! Back to the Harbour Master.

The Harbour Master was still not back and apparently Quarantine was with them. We had an hour to kill which was spent buying Aceh coffee and stocking up at the fresh vegetable market. It was still before midday, there was a chance we would be able to do some sightseeing after all. On return to the Harbour Master we were sent to do Quarantine. The first trouble we thought we were going to have was when Quarantine starting asking about ship logs etc, things we hadn't brought with us and we didn't know why they were asking about them anyway. Finally we got through Quarantine at a cost of Rp50,000 (about $6) and back to find the elusive Harbour Master. The Harbour Master was a lovely guy who had very good English and soon all our paperwork was complete, we had until Saturday to leave. As it is a free port we were asked for a 'donation', we gave them Rp50,000. So our clearance through Sabang cost us about $12, the cheapest port we have been to in Indonesia!!

Being 12.30pm we had time to go sightseeing, we had the car for another 5 ½ hours. We enjoyed the buffet at Freddy's for lunch and went on to see the lake of Aneuk Laot which is used as the clean water supply for Sabang, in Colonial times (when the Dutch were here) ships used to stop here to fill with clean water. We walked through a rainforest to a waterfall from the mountain of Sarung Keris where we swam in the clear, cool water. We stopped at a couple of beaches, Anoi Itam (a beach where the sand is black) and Gapang beach which is popular with tourists for diving and snorkelling. We also stopped at a beach where hot mud and water bubbled through the sand, our driver told us that the mud had medicinal properties and many tourists dug holes and lay in them to cure skin diseases.

The last few days we have been relaxing, snorkelling and eating while waiting for the weather to clear so that we can leave. There has been quite a lot of wind which appears to be easing and we will be leaving at 2am tomorrow morning. That and the fact that our immigration man was here today and when he saw Jay and I, he pointed at his watch and said, 'You go today!' Well, I guess that's as good a reason as any!!! We're ready to get back to Langkawi anyway and plan our trip to Chang Mai, that's my reward for surviving a 6 month surfing trip in Sumatera! We'll see you all on the other side!!

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Well, here we are anchored up in a bay called Ujung Sueng off the small village of Teluk Seudu just South of Banda Aceh. We've just finished an overnighter from Sibigo leaving yesterday around 7.30am and arriving in the anchorage here at around midday today. It seems that the elements are going crazy over here at the moment as you'll see from the above photo we experienced our first Sumatran since we've been here. We thought we had got away safely but Mother Nature had other thoughts. Luckily for us it only lasted for about an hour and wasn't as nasty as it looked. We have heard about particularly nasty Sumatrans that last for up to 3 days!

We finally have decent internet service and have been able to jump on line to get the latest on the earthquake that hit Sumatra. I really feel for these people, no sooner do they recover from one disaster, another one comes along to knock them off their feet again! The people of Sumatra, in particular Aceh, are some of the friendliest and most welcoming people we have met.

We've seen on the net that Mark Seager (American Mark from Straddie) had to dodge coconuts in the Telos during the earthquake, in Mark's own words, 'Can you imagine?' We're glad to hear that you are safe Mark, you mentioned that you were going to be there around this time in your last email and we were wondering if you had managed to get out before it happened. You're probably in the plane on the way home to the Gold Coast as we speak.

Tomorrow, we head for Pulau Weh where we will spend a couple of days before checking out of the country and heading to Malaysia.

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