Hardy crews get up close and personal to the spectacular and remote destinations in the eastern islands.
With 17,000 islands of all shapes and sizes spread over three time zones, a rich maritime history dating back hundreds of years, Makassar traders to the islands of spices and city historic port of Banten, Indonesia imagine yourself to be a world leader in the marine leisure industry. Certainly, all he had to do would be to float its collective eyes and moneyed worldwide would spent several months of the year lazily fluttering of a port host to another.
Imagine what you want, unfortunately, this is not reality. Tape problems and red safety coupled with a reluctance to embrace the outside world, means Indonesia is lagging behind its more hospitable neighbors like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand in the shipping department.
Things are changing, however.
July sees the start of a rally yachting three months starting in Darwin, Australia and winds through some of the most beautiful islands of the Indonesian archipelago before ending up in Singapore. To coincide with the rally, called Sail Indonesia, a number of cultural events and festivals are held in places such as Timor, Banda, Lembata, Wakatobi, Flores, Sulawesi, Bali, Java, Borneo, Belitung and the islands just south of Singapore.
More than 40 yachts have entered the event, the size of the Australian 33ft HEBGB at Dana Felicia UK-registered, which is almost twice the size, with more expected. The fun starts at least from an Indonesian point of view, when the yachts meet in Kupang on the island of West Timor. Kupang, of course, as all maritime historians will tell you, has its place in the history books.
Back in 1789, Captain Bligh was in charge of a trip to Tahiti to find a cheap food source for slaves in the Caribbean plantations. To cut a long story short, he surprised some members of his crew mutinied and set him adrift with four swords, five days supply of bread and water and 18 loyalists.
For about six weeks, Bligh guided his motley crew through 6500 km of raw water, little known, bearing studious notes for posterity and trying to keep a tight reign on his scruffy crew.
Finally Kupang grew up nearby and
"it is impossible for me to describe the pleasure that the blessing of sight of the land diffused among us"
wrote the captain using words that perhaps many of us in our word / brevity might find a bit much.
No doubt the bold sailors north of Darwin have their own tall tales with which regale their peers when they meet at a function to be placed on local officials, but no one could get close to it travel is more than 200 years ago with a little more than a few oars and a keen eye for navigation. Take, for example, the memories of one of the yachts, Cool Bananas, which made the return trip in 2009.
"We left Darwin with the fleet of 135 yachts Saturday 18 e July, "said Laurel Fisher" On board, the team has expanded by. join us is Lydia, one of the main organizers of the rally at the end Darwin. She happens to have a degree in Indonesian politics and fluent Indonesian, so no prizes for guessing why we asked him to join us!
"We were so excited to anchor in Saumlaki, Indonesia. We considered ourselves lucky to be getting all the official documents made in one day and with little stress. We gather that all the Indonesia works on time 'rubber'. the rally organizers advised us to throw our clocks and trust that what you need will eventually happen. the theory has worked so far!
In Kupang, sailboats are heading north of Alor where a cultural show has been on the local sailors to stage with hundreds of people dressed in traditional costumes for a bit of a sing song .
After a few quiet days sailing around the myriad inputs from South Sulawesi, yachts more traditional with stops in Lombok and Bali before visiting Karimunjawa and Warung Ibu Esther who can wait a few days busy meet the needs of these voracious, old sea dogs.
Bypass Jakarta and disdaining the pleasures of Bandung with its outlet stores and many stores selling brownies, yachts head north across the sea Java to the river Kumai and rehabilitation project of world famous orangutan before ending the Indonesian leg Bangka and Belitung and head north to Singapore.
While this sounds like a logistical nightmare, but the entire event is carried out by a loose group of organizers and everything is done via the Internet to keep expenses to a minimum. The organizers are struggling to say they get the full support of government officials, whether in a tiny coastal hamlet or real power brokers in Jakarta. Still, it was an annual event in various forms since the early 21 st century and given the increasing complexity and number of competitors, it speaks volumes about the efforts of all concerned.
When you consider all the work that goes behind the scenes, it is perhaps a shame that the rally is so poorly publicized around the rest of the country. Ok, so we can not expect local newspapers to include journalists on a yacht, but surely something on this scale deserves more in the way of promotion, and after the resulting publicity can only be good for Indonesia !