Jackamy - En route to Kumai, Borneo

En route to Kumai, Borneo

Jackamy

Paul & Derry Harper

Thu 11 Nov 2010 13:10

Thursday 11th November

We eventually cast off around 10:00, a little later than planned due to the previous nights activities. As we were motoring out through the channel, being careful not to run aground and dodging the jet ski's, speedboats and other tourist toys we heard "Jackamy stop stop" over the radio. We answered but the same reply kept coming "stop jackamy stop". And so we stopped in the channel, to notice a boat heading in our direction from the marina. It was Made, the marina manager, we hadn't paid the final bill.........oops!!!!!!

Back out in the Lombok Strait there were hundreds of the little fishing boats again dotted all over the place creating a bit of an assault course for us. As we made our way further north of Bali, still hugging the coast, we noticed that the beaches were lined with hundreds and hundreds of the fishing boats. We couldn't believe it, it was quite a sight as there were just so many. This is the real Bali, no resorts in sight, just houses dotted up in the mountains who obviously rely on fishing.

Can you see the white boats on the beaches?

Sadly the rest of the journey didn't follow on as well as the start, in fact I'd say it was horrendous. The distance we had to travel was 450 miles, which would normally take 3 days and we planned to stop off at an island called Kangean on the way to break the journey up which would make it 4 days. Anyhow, we had wind right on the nose, at one point up to 20 knots, and to make matters worse we had the tides against us. So we had to motor the whole way at very slow speeds, for a short while I noticed we were only managing 1.8 knots over the ground, so the decision to continue to battle on without stopping was made as it was clear that it was going to be a long journey. Just to explain what happens with the tides; we would be motoring at say 6 knots, but the tides would be so strong that when for example we were only managing 1.8 knots we had 4.2 knots of tide pushing us back. This was an extreme, but at all times we had around 2 knots against us. It was soul destroying!

Our new crew member

We've seen a lot of traffic on the waters, cargo ships and tankers as well as tugs pulling huge barges carrying cargo. The cargo ships and tankers don't really cause any problems as we can clearly see them on the radar and if we feel they're getting to close we give them a call and generally they are happy to move around us. The tugs however are more difficult to spot as they are lower down with lots of lights close together and only the barge appears on the radar. Oh yes, forgot to mention, the barge's are unlit and can be a mile or more behind the tug! Apparently a rally boat hit one last year! Understandably we try to give these a wide berth, not so easy when our speeds are so low and we can feel the boat being physically pulled back with the tide.

A tug and barge.............A tanker

And of course, there have been hundreds of fishing boats. For some reason they all seem to pop up just as it begins to get dark. As you get closer to them they pop their lights on and we have to make sure that we have given them enough space because no doubt they will have their nets strewn across the sea. And when I say lights, I don't mean navigation lights, sometimes it can be a red and green light that rotates and flashes, sometimes it's a blue flasher and others it's a bright white light so bright that it dazzles you. And these are just the ones who put their lights on, there are others out there who we can't even see!

What a pretty fishing boat!

We made it to Kumai around midday on Thursday, so that was just over 5 days from leaving Bali, a long and very unpleasant trip. Poor Amanda, what an introduction to sailing, the constant drone of the engine! Even the trip up the river to Kumai was quite interesting, it took around 2 hours. We had one set of leading lines, leading to another set and on to another set, I think there were 5 altogether. The reason for so many was because of the depths in the river, a channel had been made but we did find 3 metres from the water line at one point. So Paul was helmsman and Amy kept a watch with the binoculars for the lines astern and ahead and all was fine.

A traditional style Indonesian fishing boat..............Gathering something from the mangroves - we didn't find out what

The driver filming on his phone as he passes.............Friendly faces to greet us

When we turned the corner in the river and finally had Kumai within our sights, it was not at all how we expected. There were huge buildings all along the rivers edge and a very lively harbour. Dozens of tankers were anchored in the channel and there were passenger ships, ready to whisk people off to Java, as well as the big old schooners moored along the docks.

Old boats...........Building a new boat

The town....................One of the tankers

Kumai is a very religious town with I believe the majority of it's population being Muslim. Of an evening the sound coming from shore was incredible, it was the call to pray. We were anchored on the other side of the river so the volume over in amongst it all must have been deafening. I think the word to describe it is 'wailing', lots and lots and lots of people wailing!

Mosques

As we took a closer look at the shore line it became clear that these large almost tower block buildings were in actual fact 'Rumah Walet' - tall, dark buildings housing thousands of swiftlets whose spit produces high-priced nests to make the expensive birds-nest soup, a delicacy in Taipei and Hong Kong. To suit the birds and maintain security for produce worth hundreds of dollars per kilo, rumah walet have no exterior lights or no windows. For some town elders, dark buildings filled with hundreds of noisy birds that occasionally bombard pedestrians during flights equal blight. Interestingly despite millions of birds, there's not a bowl of their special soup to be found in Kalimantan. Men in full body armour climb inside the towers every 3 months to collect the nests when they'll get around 5 kg's. For 1 kilo they'd get 35 million rupiah, that's around £2,500.