Rehashing old times

Last night I was out at Nanny's Irish pub with one of my new friends in DC. The similarities between us are mind-boggling. We are both Irish-Canadian, both grew up as expatriates, with fathers who both work in the oil and gas industry. We both went/go to university in the States, both took business undergrad, want to work in similar fields in the future, both were evacuated from crisis zones when we were younger etc...The list goes on. Everytime we meet up we find we share more and more of the same opinions, beliefs, worldviews. It's a bit Irish, as you would say.

Anyway, both of us are fond of traditional music, and Nanny's has a great session every Monday night, which we are making an effort to go to and potentially play at. On Monday however, as you do, we got a little carried away with the pints and ended up just talking for ages. And, of course, we starting reminiscing about experiences from our pasts abroad. I started telling him about Sambolo beach, the Sunda straight, and my sailing/trekking adventures in the area.

My family used to have a timeshare on Sambolo Beach, which is on the west side of Java and faces Sumatra over the waters of the Sunda Straight. In the middle of the straight is the infamous Krakatoa, which exploded in 1883 with the aftermath felt around the world. The explosion was so powerful that the Island was split into 3, and the middle completely blown away. However, the volcano is still active, and over the last ten years a new volcano (named "Anak Krakatoa" or "Son of Krakatoa") has broken the surface in between the remnants of the original island - its glowing cinder cone now constantly spews lava, and the volcano has minor eruptions a couple of times a day. When my family were at the beach, we used to sit around and play in the sand, always keeping a wary eye on the volcano, which was clearly visible on the horizon. Once we saw a plume of smoke coming from the top of it, we would run into the water with excitement, waiting for the big waves that we knew would always follow an eruption. The surfers liked it too. At night time, we would watch the glowing red of the summit as we sat around our bonfires.

I once went to Ujung Kulon National Park, reputedly the last habitat of the Javan rhinoceros, of which there are probably only 2 or 3, if any, in existence. Shortly before I went, they had recently found a footprint that everyone was excited about. Unfortunately, I never got to see a rhinoceros myself, and the footprint really wasn't all that impressive. My time in the park is another story. However, to get to the park, one has to hire these little bang-bang boats that are powered by lawnmower motors and dodgy men with oars. There are no roads. On my trip in one of these little boats, we sailed through the islands of the original Krakatoa and around the side of the new volcano, jumping out for a little dip in the lava-warmed waters. The shore was a smoking, steaming mass of cooling rock, into which new streams of lava were constantly flowing, and causing the surrounding waters of the ocean to bubble angrily once they met.

After I finished telling Rob about this, I stared into the foam at the top of my pint as I swirled it around in the glass. Did that really happen? It sounds ridiculous, even to my own ears. And I tell people stories like this all the time - every weekend was such an adventure for me when I lived in Indonesia. I mean, an island that was ripped into pieces by an enormous explosion, in the middle of which a new volcano is growing - and sailing right through the centre?

The next morning, Rob sent me this picture from Google Earth.