Mount (or Gunung) Tambora is a massive bulk of volcanic deposits, roughly circular but with a gigantic caldera at its head rather than the pointed triangular peak similar to the volcanoes of Java and Bali. In 1815, however, this colossus erupted with a force never before or since recorded, this was the biggest volcanic eruption a human has witnessed. Nearly 70 years later a much smaller eruption, that of Krakatoa, was much better remembered not for it's size or death toll but for the power of the media and it's newly built telegraph cables (but that is a different story).
Back to certain death. The first rumblings of the eruption would have likely set off a series of small tsunamis ricocheting around the surrounding waterways, catching the unsuspecting kayaker in a washing machine of dangerous swells and currents. We could have kept our cool during these rumblings and, being several kilometres off shore, may have felt somewhat safe from the billowing clouds of smoke and ash that would have begun towering from the summit.
Our death however, would have occurred with a terrifying boom, louder than anything we had ever imagined, and the screaming hot pyroclastic cloud of superheated toxic gasses, ash, rock and dust that would have suddenly spewed from the belching summit. Floating in our kayaks, we would have watched the rapidly building cloud racing towards us and we may have had time to decide to leap from our kayaks into the water, using the water to protect us from the onslaught. Unfortunately, our fate would have been sealed as the pyroclastic flow would have boiled the sea water and all that was in it to a depth much greater than we could swim (despite our new freediving skills).
Even if, by some fluke of nature, we had survived this initial explosion, the sheer volume of blasted rock that was blown from the mountain would have undoubtedly slaughtered us. Boiling rocks the size of suburban shopping malls would have hurtled from the sky as if thrown with angry force by some heathen god, crashing in the sea around us. Tsunamis raged in the boiling, dark sea. There was no hope. We were incinerated.
Today things are a little more comfortable in the deep blue straits of northern Sumbawa. Coral clad shores line Moyo Island, a serene crater lake lies hidden in the heart of Satonda Island, huge marlin leap from the rich waters (we saw one today!) and villages are crammed with many happy fishermen whose children chase chickens and flick bike tyres down the street with a stick. The bedrock of this region may hide secrets of an ancient cataclysm but life here in this tropical haven at the moment is peaceful, happy and calm.
Sumbawa may have a volcanic backbone but there are no signs that history is about to repeat itself. For now at least these kayakers are safe!
Photo: In a tiny village below Mt Tambora the villagers happily welcomed us.
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