One of the busiest and most interesting places in any coastal town is the port or harbour – it is here that most of the comings and goings take place and there is generally plenty of activity to sit and watch (and sitting and watching are, of course, themselves important activities in Indonesia). As anyone who knows me will testify, I have a keen interest in sailing, shipping and things nautical in general so the harbour in Maumere has a natural attraction for me and I pay the Rp1,000 entrance fee (about €0.07) most days to see what is going on. In a country of 18,000 islands where air links are relatively expensive, sea transport provides a vital link between the islands and is the means by which most freight and passengers are transported.
Maumere harbour is a busy place with both ferries and freight ships coming and going on a daily basis and is also the centre of activity for fishing and swimming - after school every day, there are lots of young boys leaping into the sea from the jetties and ships and later in the evenings, dozens of people fishing. The harbour also has some of the best restaurants in Maumere (but believe me, it's all relative !) so is also a regular haunt for lunch or dinner.
Flores has plenty of volcanic activity – the most recently active volcano is Mt. Egon, to the east of Maumere. In this rather dusky shot, you can see where the summit of Mt. Egon used to be just in front of the bow of this ship. The light grey coating below the top is the ash from the eruption about a year ago.
Every evening, there are usually half a dozen or so large trucks like this loading up and waiting for sailings later that night.
Most of them arrive at the harbour already fully loaded but there's always room for a few more bananas.
Indonesians love having their picture taken – these two guys spotted me with my camera on the jetty opposite where they were and gestured to me to take their photo.
I duly obliged but it was only after I had taken the photo that I spotted what the guy seated was holding ! (Look at the photo again if you missed it the first time around.) I hopped onto my bike and sped around to the other side of the harbour to where he was sitting and spent some talking to him. He was a policeman from Jakarta on a tour of duty on a police boat with about 20 on board spending a few weeks in the province of NTT. He had just bought this 3 month old sea eagle for about Rp130,000 and appeared to be planning to take it with him when the boat left the following day. The one question I did ask but didn't receive an answer that I could understand was "kenapa ?" (why ?). I have seen some of these sea eagles in the air and they have a wing span of up to 2 metres. This little baby was not yet able to fly and I have no idea what he thought he was going to do with it on a relatively small boat when it starts stretching its wings...
Like I said, harbours are interesting places, you never know what you'll see next !
If they were in Kerry, they'd shoot them... I see you're getting through the books...
ReplyDeleteyou don't look like your profile picture anymore Mark...you need to update to the new, slim, trim you!
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