Wednesday 19 April

A CLOWN TRIGGER FISH, HAGGIS'S FAVOURITE FISH, ALMOST POSING FOR US!

Our last day at beautiful Gapang. As our visit to Iboih Camp isn't taking place till late afternoon, there is time to fit in 2 more scuba dives, which is wonderful. After the first dive I spend 90 minutes on the internet, catching up with mail and getting more of this diary up on the web - I find this quite easy now, but have more difficulty with the photos, which is why we are rather behind on those. I will try to get more pix up in the next day or two. I wonder sometimes whether anyone reads this diary, or whether I am just writing to myself in the ethernet! Actually yesterday I did hear from someone who had read it - I must say that cheered me up immensely!

Last dive

Eventually I have to sign off from the net, as Haggis's calls of "Bella, the boat is leaving NOW!" become more frenzied. The second dive (and our last dive till goodness knows when) is absolutely wonderful. I decide that I want to use the camera and grab it off Haggis. Normally I'm too busy just keeping my buoyancy right to take photos, and normally Hags does all the underwater photos, but today seemed like the day for me - it has to be said that with a camera in my hand underwater, I become a completely different diver - far braver!

There was a 10-minute period where I seem to be rushing from wonderful shot to wonderful shot - first there was the most enormous blue and green giant wrasse, then I pursued two lovely clown trigger fish (one of Haggis's favourite fish, with wonderful markings), then I get a shot of a huge moray eel with a beautiful shrimp on his head, then I see an enormous turtle, who deigns to let me swim with it for a while and who seems to positively like being photographed (perhaps slightly deeper than I should have at this stage as we were slowly ascending, and being with the turtle meant descending again - but it was worth it) and then a lovely octopus, and then 2 of the biggest puffer fish I have ever seen with huge poppy-out, wistful eyes.

An embarrassment of riches and almost too much of a treat! At the 5m level, where we have to stay for 3 minutes always, to get rid of all the air bubbles in the body, the sun is sending wonderful shafts of light down into the water, and each rock or coral table top seems like a separate world full on beauty and wonder. I really do love diving - I'm not nearly as good or confident as Haggis, but I really love it - and having a camera in my hand seems to make me much more confident. A wonderful last dive.

Loadsa badges

A quick scrabble to make up more badge centres, and then a car collects us to drive us to nearby Iboih Camp where we did a show 2 weeks ago. About 40 children turn up at the school and I make badges for the children and their parents in one of the classrooms, while Haggis plays with the boomsticks, does a bit of juggling workshop and runs some parachute games in the school yard. Thessa comes to help us again (though this badge session is much more orderly as there are smaller numbers than yesterday at SMA Dua, and everyone is less pushy) and Bron (a nice Australian lady, who is married to a local guy has a beautiful son and lives here in Iboih) comes too.

Goodbye show

Back to our tiny hut on stilts at the beach, a quick shower in our mandi, and Haggis does a small Goodbye Show for about 15 children and 15 adults. A last dinner of grilled tuna and my favourite spinach-like cankung and we pay our bill - the room turns out to have been even cheaper than we thought - only 80,000 rupiahs (about £5.30) a night for the two of us. It's basic here at Gapang Beach, but it is really lovely and very relaxing. It will be a good lure for performers we hope to bring to Aceh in the future. We will work them really hard in Banda Aceh doing 2 shows a day, and then on Pulua Weh we can give them an easier time, staying at Tuna Cafe over near Sabang, or here on Gapang Beach, where they just do one show and workshops each day at camps in the late afternoons - we have certainly had a wonderful mix of work and play here, and have enjoyed ourselves immensely on the island, while still managing to get a show in almost every afternoon for camp children.

Farewell to our friends

We say fond farewells to Ton and Marjann who run the excellent Lumba Lumba dive shop and who have been tremendously helpful to us, to Thessa (who is running a splendid project that is going to provide school uniforms for hundreds of children who don't have them, and who has very kindly accompanied us to help on three of our camp visits), to Flo, the lovely divemaster who first suggested we work at SMA Dua, to Aly of Children of Sumatra, who so kindly drove us to different gigs, and to all the other friends we have made here, and head up our rickety stairs to bed as we have to catch the minibus to the ferry at 7.00 am tomorrow and will have to pack up all our stuff before that.