Jakarta
Casamara
John & Susan Simpson
Wed 17 Sep 2025 05:17
John: My wife and I are in the capital of Indonesia. Friend: Jakarta? John: No, we came by boat! Approaching Jakarta In the 4 weeks since we left Pangkor, Malaysia we have sailed nearly 1,000 miles and, what with dodging fishing boats, storms and breakages, it has felt like quite a tough trip. We had purposely planned to have a couple of weeks in Jakarta to give us a bit of wriggle room in our schedule in case we needed to carry out any repairs, and it turned out to be a wise move. After we fixed the rig in Puteri Harbour (just north of Singapore), it was then the turn of the generator to go on the blink. We’d had the generator serviced whilst Casamara was stored ashore in Malaysia, and when we left there we had seen it running but we hadn’t run it for any length of time. It wasn’t until we were well into Indonesia that we came to use it, and then the generator would start but cut out immediately. By the wonders of WhatsApp we had several video chats with the engineers who had serviced the generator, with no definite resolution, but in Jakarta we were able to call out an engineer to give us some in-person help. By process of elimination we discovered that the oil pressure switch was stopping the generator because there was no oil in the engine - which is exactly what is supposed to do. The oil had all leaked out! Further investigation revealed that at some point one of the engine mounts had broken, causing the oil sump to rest on the frame supporting the engine and, presumably during Casamara’s months of storage ashore, corrosion had made a hole big enough for the oil to seep out through the bottom of the engine. As I write this, the generator is in a workshop being repaired and we hope it will be refitted in good time for us to continue on our journey next week. In the meantime, Wayne (our crew) has gone to do some exploring in Bali whilst John and I have decamped to the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel in central Jakarta for a few nights. If that sounds like we’ve one the lottery, it’s actually the same price per night as we pay for the Premier Inn where we stay when we are in Cambridge! Jakarta is a big city of great contrasts. Casamara is moored at Batavia Marina in North Jakarta. The north of the city appears to be a very poor area: lots of small, ramshackle properties made of corrugated iron, plastic sheeting and concrete; piles of rubbish; scooters carrying entire families or improbably large cargoes; people ekeing out a living doing whatever they can think of for a few rupiahs. In the marina we’ve put rat barriers on our mooring lines and I nearly stepped on a cockroach coming back from dinner one night, but there’s a decent restaurant, reasonable showers/toilets and a laundry service, so the marina is not a bad place to be. The historic old town - the Dutch East India Company’s Batavia which was operational from 1619 to 1799 - is close to the marina and we are hoping to do a bit of sight-seeing there before we leave next week. Family transport by scooter, North Jakarta Meanwhile in central Jakarta the shopping malls are glossy affairs with high-end stores and swanky cars lining up outside to collect the shoppers laden with Gucci and DKNY bags. We’ve found some good supermarkets for stocking up and they even have pork products for sale - a surprise in a predominantly Muslim country. Today we rejoiced at being able to buy some packs of cooked ham! We’re enjoying having a bit of down time and making the most of living on land again for a few days.  Central Jakarta by night Tomorrow we return to Casamara to prepare for the next leg of the journey. We plan to leave Jakarta on 24th September and our next stop will be Cocos Keeling Island, an Australian territory about 750 miles to the south west. There we will join up with the World ARC 2025 fleet which left the Caribbean in January earlier this year to sail around the world. We’re looking forward to meeting new friends and sailing in company with the fleet of 29 yachts crossing the Indian Ocean. |