Krakatoa

Longest day trip of the lot today! Picked up at 5am from our hotel in Jakarta for the three hour ride out to the western coast of Java. I snoozed most of the way, so I don't really remember much of what happened or where we went!

But we arrived at Carita Beach around 8am, met our local guide and had a light breakfast of omelette and toast. Sorted out a few details and then we were in the speedboat, heading for Krakatoa. It was about 90 minutes and the water wasn't too bad - not much wind and fairly flat waves, though it got quite rough in a couple of places.

Finally, we arrived. Krakatoa exploded in 1883, probably the most violent incident in recorded history. The pressure waves were recorded around the world for days, people heard the eruption as far away as Perth, Alice Springs and Mauritius. The original island is gone, having blown itself apart, but in 1927 Anak Krakatau or Child of Krakatoa rose from beneath the waves and has grown steadily ever since.

By December 2018 it had reached 350 metres in height and was covered in trees. Until a large flank of it collapsed, triggering a tsunami that killed 400 people and injured thousands more (it was a busy Saturday night during holiday season so a lot of people were on the beach). In that event, it lost all but 100m of height and all of its tree coverage, but we were still keen to check it out.

It's actually not the main focus of the world heritage site here - that's actually Ujong Kulong national park, further to the south. It's a national park because it's basically the only part of Java not covered in houses or rice fields, and that's directly because it wasn't repopulated after the 1883 eruption.

Either way, we finally arrived and cruised around what was once the volcano but is now just a smoking hole. There's a two kilometre exclusion zone around it, so we definitely didn't approach it. We definitely didn't land the boat, and we definitely didn't take a brief hike up the ash mounds. It was completely silent, and according to our guide it only has minor eruptions a couple of times a week, so he wasn't especially worried. But he wouldn't have let us climb very far - in the theoretical event that we landed the boat.

Did another lap of the volcano where we could see a huge area of sulphur bubbling out at sea level, as the volcano builds itself back up again. From here we went around to Rakata, the largest of the remaining islands in the chain. On the far side there's some nice coral reefs, so we jumped in and had a snorkel, checking out the coral and the fish. Fairly good condition, as they don't get many tourists!

Landed on Rakata and had a pre-packed lunch of fried chicken and rice - Indonesia's national dish, essentially. A few pieces of fruit as well, then back on the boat for the 90 minute bounce back to the mainland. Much rougher this time going against the waves, but eventually it was over.

A few handshakes and then we were back in the car for the long three hour drive back to Jakarta! Popped upstairs to find the hotel wifi wasn't working, so we dropped our stuff and went to a nice looking ramen place nearby that had good food and good wifi.

Early night after such a long day!Read more