In the spring of 1995, 6 months into our current cruise, we arrived in Trinidad, planning to spend hurricane season there. The evening of our arrival we turned on the SSB to hear the BBC World Service announce that there had been a coup d'etat in Port of Spain, 4 miles away.

The Trinidadians didn't seem perturbed, so we stayed and had a great time. The coup was a strictly local political problem largely ignored by the wider population.

Cruising can be perilous, there is no question about that. Storms, collisions and boat fires aside, all of which we have hopefully planned to cope with, political and pirate problems are high on the list of things we monitor. But whether they are more of a risk to us than, say, crossing the street in New York or London is a questionable point.

So when, last Saturday morning, we left the boat in Bali to fly to Java to visit the temples of Borobudur, another political crises crossed our path for us to consider.

Normally we are able to tune into the BBC World Service to monitor events such as this, as we did in September last year when we were anchored off a remote village in Vanuatu. Interestingly, the village chief somehow heard about it before we did and told us so we tuned in. How he found out just after it happened remains a mystery to us, as there are no phones.

In Java we were forced to watch local TV, trying to extract information from an incomprehensible language. We did find an Indonesian station which broadcast a 15-minute news slot in English, but having no broadcast schedule, we always tuned in halfway through. The local people were, as is always our experience, more than helpful, translating for us and offering any assistance we might need. And it is the ordinary local people who comprise the reality of our existence here.

Although the Bali situation is heartbreaking and very disturbing, the religious mix of local people - Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Christian - would very much prefer it hadn't happened, and are as pleasant to us as they ever were. Nowhere have we felt unwelcome. On the contrary the Indonesians are distraught that their reputation for friendliness and hospitality has been tainted by this event.

An interesting experience at this time was at the fantastic temple in Borobudur. There being only a handful of tourists, we were accosted by groups of Muslim school kids who wanted to practise their English. We of course obliged and chatted with them for a while. One asked the question "How do people in England feel about Muslims after last September?". Remember that we are in a remote area of Java where there is little chance for these students to meet foreigners.

A difficult question to answer using only a limited vocabulary. However the important point was in the tone of the question, which was that the children were concerned that all Muslims were now seen as terrorists and anti Westerners, which of course simply isn't true, but they were concerned enough and brave enough to ask.

So we will continue our cruise in this area, as a precaution probably steering clear of heavily populated tourist areas, and continue to interact with the local people as we always do. In some respects cruisers are a little safer than other holiday makers as many of the terrorist attacks are in heavily populated tourist areas or in business districts in major cities. Typically cruisers do not spend much time in either and are far more likely to be anchored off a small town or village.

Our cruise through Indonesia has been a delight until now and although we are of course deeply distressed by the pointless loss of life we will carry happy memories of our time in Indonesia.