Woes & Joys of Kartini Harbour

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Starboard forward view

Aft view

When we first sailed Calypso into Kartini Harbour, there were a handful of small fishing boats but, generally speaking, it was really quite empty.  Oh my but how things have changed.

The bad weather during the monsoon season found dozens of huge fishing boats with mega-huge bowsprits, scurrying into the harbour for protection leaving poor Calypso lost in their midst.  Sadly, she has suffered a fair amount of damage from these manoeuvres.  The davits were the first to go when a boat must have hit us and bent the stabilising rail.  Next was a smashed solar panel, a badly mutilated radar arch and, too, the stainless steel railings supporting these are bent and broken.  One stanchion base has been ripped out from the deck and our Danbuoy is no more, presumed broken and sunk.  In addition, we had to surround ourselves with tires for protection and, despite the fact that we wrapped them all in heavy plastic, this has worn away leaving hideous black marks all along the hull.

None of this is irretrievable but they're just more set-backs and, instead of our job list getting shorter, it's progressively getting longer and longer.  Until such time as the majority of these vessels depart for the dry season, there seems little point in getting stuck into fixing everything lest it just gets damaged again.  

Hindsight being what it is, we should never have put her there; we had no idea it would be this bad.  Unfortunately, Indonesia is not geared up for cruisers so there are literally no adequate facilities available.  We would have had to take her up to Malaysia and stored her on the hard there but then how could we have performed the necessary maintenance?

We can't really blame the fishing boats other than it would have been nice for some of them to come forward by admitting they were responsible for the damage.  Conditions were so horrendous at times and, with literally dozens upon dozens of these large boats vying for space in rough circumstances, something going awry was inevitable. They do genuinely try to avoid us but....

The harbour is a major hive of activity with not only fishing boats but delivery boats carrying their wares between the islands.  Truckloads of furniture go out, loads of fish come in, landfill is a common cargo, as are coconuts destined for the markets.  We see huge blocks of ice being loaded and barrels galore of whatever.  

Indonesia is a country consisting of over 17,000 islands and the majority are far too small to have an air strip therefore everything gets moved in and out by sea.  It's quite fascinating to watch the hubbub of activity each day.

PHOTO ALBUM:

Loading teak furniture

Fishing baskets

Unloading the catch

Some of the attractive fishing boats

And the not so attractive