Sail with Jenny in the fjords of Norway

Archive for September, 2013

Batavia Marina er en koselig marina med god mat og drikke, men av og til må vi stikke nesen ut av porten og da er helv…. løs.  Trafikk, eksos, søppel, kloakk, rotter, mygg, etc. etc.  det er faktisk ikke mulig å beskrive lukten og lydene rundt oss når vi går i gatene uten fortau og med 1000-vis av mopeder / biler /sykkler /drosjer/kjerrer  rundt oss på alle kanter og skulle vi være så syndig å ta en taxi står vi stort sett i kø….Vi har aldri og kommer sikkert ikke på lenge til å se noe verre, vi jobber intenst med vedlikehold av båt (mens vi venter på deler til kjøleskap og rortetning) for å komme oss bort herfra.

Med god hjelp fra den Norske ambasaden fikk vi endelig delene vi trengte og god hjelp fra lokale håndtverkere og personale her på Batavia Marina har vi nå fått reparert rortetningen, vacumbryteren for hovedlensepumpen og oljekjøleren til gearboksen og i tillegg også noen reparasjoner av presenning trekkene til skylights.

Ventetiden på deler ble også brukt til sight seeing og siden Svein Jarle hadde slektninger som bor utenfor Jakarta kom de og tok oss med til en festival for folkedans og håndarbeid utenfor Jakarta. Dagen ble en fantastisk opplevelse av Indonesisk mangfold og kultur. Vi har alt for lett å glemme at det bor 220millioner mennesker i dette forholdsvis lille landet.

Heldigvis er menneskene blide, hyggelig og har alltid et smil på lur og det hjelper godt på.  Vi hadde tenkt oss til Bali eller JogJakarta på sightseeing, men vi orker ikke å være her mer enn høyst nødvendig – vi drømmer oss bort til Cocos Keeling som er vårt neste stopp.  Der er det axurblått vann og gode forhold for snorkling og bading her er det bra skitt og søppel og vi må trå veldig forsiktig for ikke å falle uti den åpne kloakken eller i sjøen som er brun som …..

English:

Batavia Marina is a nice Marina with good food and drinks, but sometimes we have to venture outside the gates and then he…. is loose.  Traffic, exhaust, rubbish, garbage, rats, mosquitoes, etc, etc. It is in fact not possible to describe the smell and sound when we walk in the roads without pavements and hundreds of motorbikes, cars, lorries, hand pulled trolleys, horse and carts,  around us on all sides. If we take a taxi we end up in an hourly long ques. We have never and will possible never to see anything worse ever.  Hence our work and maintenance of Jenny while we are waiting on our spare parts have got high priority such that we get underway as soon as possible.

With good help from the Norwegian Embassy did we eventually receive the parts we needed and with good help from local technicians and marina crew have now the rudder gland seal been repaired, the vacuum switch for the bilge pump and the gear box oil cooler been repaired. Some stitching repairs have also been done to the skylight canvas and a lot of good varnishing of deck trim and toe rail.

The time waiting on parts has also been used for sight seeing and Svein Jarle who has a relative living outside Jakarta organised a tour to a fair outside the city centre where they displayed dance and various segments of Indonesian culture from different parts of the country. It became a fantastic experience which showed the diversity of the Indonesian culture. We became very much aware of the size of the country which has a population of more than 220 million.

Luckily the people of Jakarta is nice, welcoming and always smiling to you. Our plan was to fly down to Bali or Jog Jakarta for sightseeing but now our priority is to get out of here as soon as possible. We are now dreaming of Cocos Keeling which is our next stop with crystal clear water rather than looking at the water here which is just Brown……as……

Jakarta

For the first time since we left Singapore we have had a day and night sail with good and steady wind from East and a pleasant ride towards Jakarta.
We have all enjoyed a hot day in the cockpit with not a lot of cloths on. During the night there was a lot of traffic so a good look out was necessary. Cargo ships and squid fishing boats with lots of light on, not like the small fishing boats with nets that we meet on the west side of Malaysia. We have later discovered (when Svein-Jarle was diving on the boat) that we probably had a net on the wings for some time because there is a mark in the paint on top of the wings, and we remember a loud noise when it went off and we got one knot more speed.

Early in the morning we saw the skyline of Jakarta and had to slow the boat down because we needed high tide to get in to the marina. After “circling” around to wait for the tide we headed for the marina entrance.
We knew that the channel into the marina was shallow and several times we asked the marina manager for the dept but he never answered us on that question but was very nice and helpful. At 16.00 we entered 14 cm before high tide and it got more and more shallow but the boat never really stopped it just went slower for a while. We saw 1,8m on the dept sounder and Jenny is 2.5 so we have probable made a nice plow in the mud. But we got in to the nice Batavia Marina with a beautiful reception and very nice
facilities so we where all very happy. The Marina manager was also helpful and friendly.
After having a good anchor dram we hosed down the boat with fresh water and had a good pizza for dinner.

The next morning after a good night sleep Jan and me walked to the old city of Jakarta (which is very close), but at some time we got lost and was helped by a lady named Hanna who is an English teacher and she more or less followed us to the center of Kota. We asked Hanna if she could be our guide in Jakarta and we will invite her our to the boat today and make arrangement for a guided tour. We always like to meet the local people and that makes all the difference, the city (what we saw) is dirty, smelly
and the people live in very bad conditions. But as always there is a rich elite that has a lots of money.
We look forward to meet Hanna today and listen to what she have to tell us about her city.