Pulau-pulau Krakatau

When I was 5 or 6 years old, I got the "Volcanoes" book from the famous german "Was ist was" childbook series. Since that day I was dreaming of seeing this unbelievable powers of our amazing planet for real.
Finally this day that dream came true.
Arriving at the village Canti, brought to more or less the only hotel, I walked straight to the pier, discovering the harbor was not in use anymore, only two fishing boats on the beach. No ferry, as some (already known as unreliable) information online were saying. As usual here, the best way is to talk to locals, but the woman running the hotel was not speaking any english and a little bit shy, so I walked to the pier and asked around there. Buying some drinking water in the tiny shop, brought me to Suridaya, a local man who told me he could bring me there and be my guide. He barely spoke English, so our conversation mostly went on with hands, feet and google translate 😅
For fixing the tour, he wanted to visit me at my hotel later, finally he found me an hour later at the only restaurant, there, accompanied by Ham, a fisherman owning one of the only two boats here.
After some bargaining about the price, we agreed to start the tour at 5am.
Dino, one of Suridaya's sons, joined the tour, he spoke a little bit of English, so some basic conversations possible, but translator was still in heavy use.
Cloudy morning, but sun brushed sky clear very soon and burned down on our tiny boat.
Calm sea, only usual currents were sometimes pushing on the boat, perfect day for an amazing trip.
Passing by Sebuku and Sebesi islands (we visited on our way back, another footprint coming for that), some beautiful, natural islands with few people living on.
A quite long ride, but after around 1,5 hrs Krakatoa came at sight. 😲
Still half an hour to reach, but approaching that permanently smoking volcano and seeing it growing on the horizon was already awesome.
Cannot describe my feelings, while going around the active crater, lying in the middle of the old crater islands. Permanently volcano's rumbling to hear, some really intense Salpeter smelling in the air, at some points, and seeing these rocks of cold Lava, volcanic stones, and huge amounts of ashes, being washed away by rain and sea, witnesses of some brutal natural forces earlier, made me speechless and feeling humbled.
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