Blog 65. 4 October 2019 Lovina to Bawean. 05.43.83S 112.40.135E

Alcedo
David Batten
Mon 14 Oct 2019 20:56

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Very nice bird seen during an exploratory walk in Lovina. Skipper’s wife very excited to find 2 bird books covering Indonesian Islands, including Borneo, but still not able to identify it. ?Anyone any ideas.

Another early start from Lovina and a motor sail to Jangkar on the north coast of Java. We decided not to go to Menangnan, the nature reserve off the north coast of Bali because we had been told that the rangers would charge for anchoring and per person admission, something in the order of Rp 2,500,00 just for the boat. Erroneous information as it turned out, as boats that did stop there just got a cheerful wave from the Rangers. Misinformation that is typical of Indonesia.

Jangkar, or rather the small fishing village to the east of Jangkar, provided a reasonable night stop on East Java, with a bit of a swell when we arrived, but overall a peaceful night. The small village seemed very detached from Jakarta or Bali and, how lucky, had a fairly quiet mosque.

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The fishing village at Jangkar

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Fishing boats off Jangkor in the early mornig. Very colourful, with local ferry in the background. We saw many more larger boats further away from the coast and numerous FADs, so glad it was daylight.

We had a surprisingly good sail to Bawean, in that within 2 hours of motor sailing, it was engine off and great sailing with the wind almost on or just off the beam. In the channel between Mandura Island and Pulau Sapudi, there were numerous commercial vessels and tugs with long tows that lulled us into a false sense of security concerning fishing vessels. Come 8.00pm, Skipper’s wife came on watch to take over from the Skipper to be greeted by a loom of over 40 lights ahead, too many to count and mostly fishing boats. Miraculously, most of them passed to one side or the other, with a couple of small ones actually coming right up to us to have a look. All very bad for the Skipper’s rest period, but good for keeping the Wife fully alert and on constant look out. The Ship’s Boy had less company, but it got busy again the next morning off the coast of Bawean, with a new fashion in FADS as well.

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Latest fashion in FADs, Bawean style, very difficult to see unless close to and quite a number of them in spite of busy shipping in the area

We anchored in what seemed to be fairly rough and windy conditions in the very attractive anchorage in Teluk Promahan, off the village whose name is not on any maps, but near the town of Tambak.

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The anchorage at Bawean, low water. There was more shelter than it looks because of reefs on either side of the entrance, but we did have many a rough dinghy ride in the afternoon winds.

Bawean is undoubtably very beautiful, with some lovely forested hills, but large areas have been de-forested to make way for rice fields an other farming activities and it has a huge litter problem. This beach was cleaned for our arrival, as was the beach area where we had the opening ceremony for the Bawean Festival. The litter left after the Bawean festival was appalling. The average Indonesian just doesn’t care or even notice it.

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The view inshore from the anchorage.

It is fair to say that our stay here has been a bit chaotic. On arrival, we checked into the TIC (Tourist Information Centre) i.e. a shack on the beach and were told that there would be a tour of the island, not on the schedule, and that we should come ashore for at 08.00 in the morning. As we had already had 2 schedules that said the official program did not start until the following day, this sounded promising. We had a simple, but very good meal in the beach cafe, with beer from the boat. Bawean is strictly Muslim and there was no alcohol (apparently) to be had on the island, but is was OK to bring our own to the cafe. We retired for an early night, tired after a night at sea with rough conditions and the constant look out. 8.00am and ashore in good time, no tour but we could hire a car for Rp 2,500,000 about 4 times the usual price, or go on a tour to one of the local tourist hot spots and pay more for each additional spot, all ridiculously expensive. As the local cafe was advertising car hire for Rp 400,000 per day, we all declined the TCI arrangements and made alternative arrangements. We actually visited a local school as one of the “guides” turned out to be a teacher at the school and was keen to take us there having discovered Ship’s Boy was a maths teacher. (Or had been in a pre-family life).

The school visit was, as always, really interesting. It was a sort of “sports day” with a form volley ball competition, some football and a poetry competition and no formal teaching. The “playground” was covered in pieces of plastic in spite of large number of rubbish bins strategically placed all around the periphery. The students not actually participating in one of the activities and in particularly the boys, were just dossing around the margins of the playground, apparently practicing for a life of no work after leaving school. There is a huge number of unemployed young men in Indonesia. The girls were much better at English and much more enthusiastic about practising their English with us and also helped the Skipper’s wife with a litter pick. The headmaster was recruited to tell the students about the dangers of litter and plastic in particular and maybe, just maybe, the staff will do a bit more to discourage the children from littering. It has to be said that the standard of teaching is not high in many schools and equipment such as books and laboratory equipment is not startling except in the amount of dust gathering on them. However, the school had a good atmosphere and some of the pupils did really want to learn English and get good jobs.

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The girls picking up litter in the school playground. These 4 are all members of their form volley all team, hence the matching track suits. Not one boy deigned to help

After the school visit, a wander up the village street, where men were repairing the tarmac surface. This is the only time we have seen a maintenance activity on the roads.

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Road maintenance, Indonesian style

Tomorrow is the opening ceremony at Mombhul Beach, so we need to be ashore for transport in good time in the morning. It will be interesting to see what “transport” turns out to be.

Alcedo
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