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.