'If you come in rainy season, girls, then you've got to expect it to rain.'

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From where we sit, perched at the computer, we can see the sparkle of the Indian Ocean, hear the rustling of the palm trees and smell the fresh air that only comes from being on the busiest beach of pulau weh (population 10). The eight years since the tsunami has done little to change this stretch of Gapang beach; the dive shop has been re-built, so have the few houses and bungalows but the locals don't seem to have been put off by the 10 metre wave that flooded the island back in 2004. However, don't go getting yourselves all jealous because it hasn't all been beautiful sunshine. As we were warned, all the way back in Thailand, inevitably rain does sometimes fall in South East Asia during rainy season. What a surprise. Although we haven't been drenched yet, there have been a few near misses when the rather sinister clouds have suddenly decided that its a great idea to bucket it down when we're trying to subathe.

The past few days has been all about island life. Its so remote out here that there is very little else to do aside from dive, eat and play cards. Fine by us. Yesterday we mustered up the courage to go on an introductory dive. Becky and Lissie, being total novices, were a little nervous about the whole breathing underwater thing but we managed to be really brave and embrace the scuba technique. After watching a painfully cheesy 90's introductory video we went into the water with instructor James and started to learn the ropes. We dove for about 40 minutes and were lucky enough to see blue starfish, a trumpet fish and an octopus. It was incredible. We've definitely caught the diving bug.

On a separate note, we thought you should be warned that Indonesian babies are possibly the cutest in the whole world so if we return to England with 4 adopted children then please don't blame us, blame amazing genetics.

Unfortunatelly for us (but apparently not for everyone) the dream island life must come to an end and once again we find ourselves braving indonesian public transport. The next two days will involve a taxi, a ferry, a night bus, another taxi and then a casual plane ride, and hopefully we'll have reached bustling Bangkok. Who knows what to expect there...?

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