Great whites near shore more often than believed

Shark experts surprised by research in Pacific

By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A white shark tagged with both acoustic (front) and pop-up satellite (rear) tags. The acoustic tag is detected when the shark swims within 250 m of a listening station, while the pop-up satellite tag records information about location, temperature and depth -- and relays it to the laboratory when the tag releases itself from the shark. (Scot Anderson )

For years, humans have thought of great white sharks wandering the sea at random, only occasionally venturing close to shore.

We were wrong.

Pacific white sharks spend months near the northern and central California coast between August and February foraging among elephant seals, sea lions and other prey, according to a new study published online Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. The team of 10 California-based researchers determined that these sharks probably pass close to populated beaches and have been spotted as far inland as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, east of the Golden Gate Bridge.

"It shows you how wild it is off our West Coast of North America. This is Yellowstone," said Stanford University marine sciences professor Barbara A. Block, who co-wrote the paper.

By tracking their movements, scientists determined that the fearsome predators make such precise, regular migrations each year between the California coast and the Hawaiian islands that they have become genetically distinct from their counterparts on the other side of the Pacific.

The fact that "a major concentration" of great whites can ignore the humans who might have crossed their path there "shows us the sharks are really minding their own business. The number of interactions with people is very small, considering," said Stanford University post-doctoral scholar Salvador J. Jorgensen, the paper's lead writer.

The findings represent nearly a decade of work, during which scientists tagged 179 great white sharks that roam the Pacific. They lured the creatures to their boat with a carpet decoy designed to look like a seal, and used a lance to attach the tags with the aid of 2.3-inch titanium darts.

They used three technologies to track the sharks' movements: satellite tags, which archive travel data by measuring the light in the sea and using astronomical math to determine where they are swimming; acoustic tags, which register a precise location when a shark comes within about 820 feet of a receiver; and mitrochondrial DNA sampling, which maps the animals' genetic lineage through their maternal line.

While researchers set up acoustic receivers in four central California locations where they knew the sharks would congregate -- Año Nuevo Island, South Farallon Island, Point Reyes and Tomales Point -- they discovered by accident that several white sharks entered the mouth of the San Francisco Bay. That is because the five great whites set off receivers established by another team, which had put them there to track migrating salmon.

Just as important, the scientists were able to determine through satellite tagging that great whites left the California coastline each winter and traveled 1,240 to 3,100 miles to the Hawaiian islands. Scientists have called a certain location along the route the white shark cafe, because they suspect that mating or foraging may take place there.

Tagging records from May and June show that male white sharks "converge in a very specific area of the cafe," Jorgensen said, while female sharks move in and out of the area. "It adds a little more evidence to the argument that this could be an important reproductive area."

Jorgensen said the great whites swimming off California probably descended from migrants that came from areas near Australia and New Zealand during the late Pleistocene Epoch, as many as 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.

The new findings have several significant conservation implications for great whites, which rank as one of the world's most protected shark species. Researchers are conducting a census of the creatures off California's coast because their exact numbers are unknown, and they may be able to identify areas of their migration routes that need additional protection.

Even Block, however, said she looks at places such as Carmel Point with a new perspective now that she knows the extent to which white sharks frequent the area. The scientists hope to put additional receivers near popular beaches to monitor shark movements.

"When I go to the beach there, I look at it differently," she said. "These animals are coming in so close to shore because that's where the pinnipeds [seals and sea lions] are."

Related Article:

Tracking a predator

Scientists spent eight years tracking the movements of 179 great white sharks and discovered that these predators have very predictable migration patterns between Hawaii and the North American coast. Dots below show approximate locations where 68 sharks tagged with satellite sensors were recorded at various times.

Bonnie Berkowitz, Gene Thorp and Todd Lindeman

The Washington Post

Australian Oil Spill Clean-Up Could Take 7 Years

The Jakarta Globe

The partially collapsed Montara well head platform and the West Atlas mobile offshore drilling unit smoldering in the Timor Sea. (Reuters Photo)

Sydney. Monitoring the clean-up of a huge oil spill in pristine Australian waters could take as long as seven years, an official said on Wednesday as environmentalists urged a wide-ranging inquiry into the disaster.

As many as 28,000 barrels of oil have gushed into the Timor Sea off Western Australia’s northern coast in the 10 weeks since the West Atlas oil rig began leaking, raising concerns of an environmental disaster.

Attempts to plug the hole were delayed by the need to bring equipment from Singapore, the difficulty of the operation some 2.6 kilometers below the seabed and a fierce inferno fuelled by the leak which erupted on Sunday.

The rig’s operator PTTEP Australasia said the clean-up would be carried out quickly after the oil and gas leak and the fire were shut down on Tuesday.

“I suspect a couple of months is what we are sort of anticipating,” the company’s Jose Martins said of the operation.

“The environmental plan really could take up to seven years.”

Australian Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, who has called for an inquiry into the incident, welcomed the news that the fire on the rig and the Montara wellhead platform had been extinguished.

“I think we are all relieved that what could have been a very dangerous situation hasn’t seen any loss of life,” the minister told public radio.

Environmentalists said stopping the flow was the first step in cleaning up the spill some 250 kilometers offshore, but called for any inquiry into the leak and fire to have wide-ranging powers.

“This is a major spill,” World Wildlife Fund Australia’s Ghislaine Llewellyn said.

“This is up in the top three in Australian history.”

Llewellyn said the spill of oil and condensate combined with the dispersant used to control the slick had created a toxic cocktail which would have a long-term impact on the area’s pristine tropical marine life.

Authorities said they were investigating whether oil from the rig could have washed up on Australia’s northern coast.

The Australian Embassy in Jakarta has dismissed reports that oil from the leak had come close to Indonesian coastal waters as “highly unlikely.”

Agence France-Presse

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Pelindo puts in place Priok overhaul plan

Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 11/03/2009 9:29 AM

A load off my mind: Loading and unloading activities at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta. State port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) II plans to develop Tanjung Priok port into an international hub port with docks 18 meters deep, starting next year. JP/R. Berto Wedhatama

State port operator PT Pelindo II is embarking on a five-year overhaul of Tanjung Priok port to challenge the dominance of Singapore as a regional trade hub, in a process that requires Rp 6 trillion in fresh investment.

“[So far] ships opt to do transshipment in Singapore rather than in Tanjung Priok. Starting next year, we will improve this port, so that we can provide better services and supporting infrastructure for [big] ships,” Pelindo president director Richard J. Lino said on the sidelines of seminar projecting Jakarta as Indonesia’s hub port.

According to Richard, one of the improvements needed is to create a more efficient port administration which will be easier to access.

“We have discussed with the Customs and Excise Office about cutting the document process down to a half day,” he said, adding that currently it needed seven days to process documents in Tanjung Priok, in contrast to one day in Singapore.

According to Richard, due to the limited infrastructure for big ships and the bureaucratic culture, only 40 percent of total loads aimed for export transited via Tanjung Priok, while the rest did their transshipment in Singapore.

In 2008, about 18,000 ships were transiting in Tanjung Priok, carrying 62 million tons of cargo that included 4 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) of containers.

“Hopefully, the hub port, which will be officially in place in 2014, will boost the volume of containers going through Tanjung Priok up to 8 million TEUs from 4 million in 2009,” he said.

He said that besides administration reform, there were other things that needed to be improved at the congested Tanjung Priok to reach the level of a professional hub port.

“We will re-design the port to a depth of 18 meters and some 14 meter-docks for big ships carrying more that 5,000 TEUs of containers,” Richard said.

To facilitate the plan Pelindo will carry out land reclamation from the sea so as to widen the port’s handling capacity, according to Richard.

“We need 300 hectares of additional land. We also need 6 hectares more of parking lots in the port,” he said, adding that the new parking lot would be the biggest in the country.

Currently Tanjung Priok covers 604 hectares of land.

The Transportation Ministry’s director general of sea transportation Sunaryo said that it was not easy to create a hub port because it had to fulfill many criteria.

“The port should be near the international sea lanes and with a minimum depth of 14 meters.

“However, Tanjung Priok is only 11 meters depth. It needs some dredging to make the sea deeper,” Sunaryo said.

He said that the shallowness of the port had caused the port to face difficulties in accommodating ships of more than 200,000 tons .

Pelindo has estimated that the overhaul of Tanjung Priok will require at least Rp 6 trillion (US$610 million).

“We are still trying to get investors,” Richard said.

Pelindo II manages ports in 12 areas across the country including Sunda Kelapa in Jakarta, Banten, Palembang in South Sumatra and Teluk Bayur in West Sumatra.

In the third quarter of this year, the company booked Rp 1.8 trillion in revenue from Rp 2.3 trillion targeted this year.

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Indonesia to use Rotterdam Port as example

Major Port a New Priority for Indonesia

The Jakarta Globe

The Ministry of Transportation on Monday admitted its efforts to develop a much-needed international-standard port were progressing slowly.

Sunaryo, director general of maritime transportation at the ministry, said formulating a blueprint for an international-quality seaport was one of Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi’s priorities for his first 100 days in office, although none of the country’s seaports had yet shown the potential to become a regional hub for cargo vessels.

“We are trying to determine which port can be turned into an international hub,” Sunaryo said after opening a two-day seminar entitled “Jakarta as Indonesia’s Hub Port.” The seminar was organized by state-owned seaport operator PT Pelindo II in Jakarta.

“We still haven’t figured out where we should build it,” he said.

Pelindo II is pushing for Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta, which it says can be expanded into an international hub with renovations that would cost upwards of Rp 7 trillion ($735 million).

Currently, cargo shipments to Indonesia must stop in either Singapore or Malaysia before being delivered using smaller feeder vessels.

Although Sunaryo hinted that it was most likely the international hub would be developed in Jakarta or Batam, existing ports did not meet the requirements for a variety of reasons, including the fact the water was not deep enough for big ships to dock.

“The depth of sea water at Tanjung Priok, for example, is only 11 meters,” he said. “It can only handle cargo ships of less than 60,000 tons.”

Pelindo II president director R J Lino said that with renovations, Tanjung Priok could be ready to operate as an international hub by 2014.

“Tanjung Priok has one of the most strategic locations within the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.

However, Sunaryo said the Tanjung Priok port’s location was also a problem because getting feeder transport in and out of the port area was difficult.

“It’s useless having a huge port if there is no easy access,” he said.

He said that if there was no integrated mass transportation service, the volume of cargo being delivered by trucks would significantly worsen the already poor traffic conditions in the capital.

S Sumatra`s mangrove forests in critical conditions :official

Antara News, Monday, November 2, 2009 17:51 WIB

Palembang, S Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Mangrove forests in South Sumatra are in critical conditions due to the conversion of coastal areas into shrimp and fish farms by local residents, a provincial maritime official said.

To stop a further deterioration of the mangrove forests, the South Sumatra marine resources and fisheries office was planning to plant 125,000 mangrove seedlings along the coasts of Musibanyuasin and Ogan Komering Hilir districts, the office`s head, Lukman Nur Hakim, said here on Monday.

A small team consisting local residents would later be formed to continuously watch over the newly planted mangrove seedlings, he said.

But Lukman admitted the 125,000 mangrove seedlings would not be enough to restore the degraded mangrove forests to their original conditions. Therefore, his office was also planning to do the mangrove replanting along South Sumatra province`s coasts every year and thus gradually increase the number of new mangrove trees.

Lukman said mangroves played an important role in preserving the existence of marine biota and preventing soil abrasion. Mangroves could also help clean the air and reduce the effects of global warming.

In order to maintain the marine environment, Lukman added, his office was continuously monitoring the existence of coral reefs along coastal areas in Musibanyuasin and Ogan Komering Hilir districts.

Five spots in the two districts had also been designated as places to cultivate new coral reefs, Lukman said.

According to the official NACA (an inter-governmental organisation promoting rural development through sustainable aquaculture) website www.enaca.org, close to half of mangrove coverage occurs in five countries, i.e. Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, Nigeria and Mexico with the largest mangrove area in Southeast Asia located in Indonesia.

In general, the mangroves of Southeast Asia were the best developed and most diverse in terms of plants and animals. Fifty two out of the 268 plant species that have been recorded from these mangrove areas are true mangrove species or those that are found only in mangrove habitats while the others are mangrove associated species that are also encountered in non-mangrove habitats.

Eighteen species of mangrove plants are endemic to the south east Asian region and eight out of them are true mangroves.

Current member of NACA are Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Burning Oil Rig May Collapse

The Jakarta Globe

The West Atlas oil rig may fall into the sea, says PTTEP Australasia. (Photo: AP, PTTEP Australasia)

Sydney. An oil rig leaking into the Timor Sea and engulfed in a massive blaze is at risk of total collapse, the rig operator acknowledged Monday, as government officials frustrated by failure to plug the leak promised an investigation.

Officials with rig operator PTTEP Australasia were planning to pump more heavy mud into a leaking well casing on Tuesday in the hopes of removing the source of fuel from the fire, which broke out on the West Atlas rig and Montara wellhead platform on Sunday.

The blaze started when workers were pouring mud into a hole that has been leaking an estimated 400 barrels of oil a day since Aug. 21. The company says it does not know what sparked the blaze.

``The fire is out of control,'' PTTEP Australasia chief financial officer Jose Martins told reporters in Perth on Monday.

A portion of the rig has already collapsed onto the wellhead platform, and there is a ``large risk'' the West Atlas rig could collapse into the sea, Martins said.

Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said Monday that once the spill is contained he would launch an official inquiry.

``Our requirement is to assess the cause of the accident and any lessons to be learnt, and that could lead to a change in the regulatory environment,'' he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Ferguson later told reporters in Melbourne that if PTTEP was ``found to have been at fault with respect to any of their responsibilities, then any potential action will be appropriately considered at the time.''

On Monday, the company said it was mixing 4,000 barrels of heavy mud to pour down the well on Tuesday morning.

The oil slick from the rig, about 150 miles (250 kilometers) off Australia's northwest coast, now stretches across thousands of miles (kilometers) of remote ocean. Indonesia said last week that thousands of dead fish and clumps of oil have been found drifting near its coastline.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Monday he was ``deeply disturbed'' at the latest turn of events on the rig, signaling the government's rising frustration that fixing the spill is taking so long.

``Do I think this is acceptable? No, I don't,'' Rudd told Fairfax Radio Network. ``Are we angry with this company? Yes we are. Are we trying to do everything we can to get this under control? You betcha.''

AP

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Farmers spend own climate change adaptation fund

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 11/02/2009 8:38 PM

Frustrated by the government’s inaction, traditional farmers and fishermen have taken initiatives in adapting to extreme weather as an impact of climate change.

Farmers in Pati, Central Java, have to set aside one eighth of their income to purchase water to irrigate their paddy fields because they have moved forward their planting time by two months to avoid annual floods in January over the last five years.

“We are forced to use our money to buy water due to the absence of government assistance,” Tanto, a farmer from Batu Rejo village in Sukolilo district in Pati, told a climate forum jointly organized by the Indonesian Civil Society Forum (CSF) and Oxfam on Monday.

Tanto said that around 170 farmers in his village collected an average of Rp 92 million each planting season to water 150 hectares of their paddies. The farmers plant paddies twice a year

The forum featured farmers and fishermen from several towns across the country, who shared their efforts to adapt to extreme weather changes believed to be the impacts of the climate change.

Farmers from Indramayu in West Java and East Nusa Tenggara said they were also facing depleting water supply and unpredictable weather.

The East Nusa Tenggara farmers said they were struggling to cope with “fake” rains.

“Rain usually falls once or twice at the end of October, prompting farmers to plant maize. But unfortunately there was no more rain in the next four weeks, causing the plants to die,” Dominggus Tes, a corn farmer from Nusa village, told the forum.

Meanwhile, traditional fishermen in Krui, West Lampung said local fishermen had been unable to predict weather in their area in the last five years.

“In the past we could predict the weather by locating the position of South Star. But it is no longer applicable now,” said fisherman Edy Hamdan.

He said the fishermen tried to adapt to the climate change by creating new fishnets at a cost of Rp 20 million.

“Otherwise, we will return home empty-handed,” he said.

Paradise lost?

COP15 Copenhagen, Michael von Bülow, 20/03/2009 12:40

Most people know the Maldives as a tropical paradise for holiday makers. But behind the white beaches and glittering waves is a poor population which has lived in close symbiosis with the sea for hundreds of years - but now has to look elsewhere for a place to live, as the ocean is steadily eating away at their islands.

When the tsunami hit the archipelago of the Maldives in 2004, it was more in the way of a flooding than a regular tidal wave due to the sharp profile of the atolls. Only 87 people perished, but the damages were catastrophic for the tiny island state.

Two thirds of the country disappeared momentarily into the Indian Ocean, and when the sea withdrew, it took 62 percent of the country’s GNP with it. Electricity, communications and freshwater supplies on many islands were destroyed by the saltwater, and not until two years later was the country brought back on foot with the aid of the UN and international aid organisations.

Perhaps it was only a taste of what the 300,000 citizens of the Maldives can expect if and when global warming kicks in and makes the world’s seas rise by as much as one meter within the next century, like the latest scientific studies forecast.

80 percent of the island state’s only 235 km2 are less than one meter above sea level, so disaster is looming. Erosion is constantly eating away at the vulnerable atolls, and climate change is already palpable in the shape of more rain and more disease-carrying mosquitoes.

To most foreigners the Maldives are just a paradise for holiday makers. White beaches as if taken straight from a postcard and a temperature that due to cooling breezes from the sea never becomes unbearably high, making the country a rare pearl made for sailing, surfing, diving or just lazing on the beach. Under the sea, hobby divers encounter a world of adventures with corals and a thousand different tropical fish species.

Almost 700.000 tourists from mainly Europe, Japan, China and Australia visit the Maldives each year. Upon landing in one of the two international airports, one immediately notices the proximity of the sea. It feels literally like landing on the water because the islands are so tiny – a jogger can easily cover the perimeter of the main island Male’ in less than half an hour. The runways are regularly wet with splashes of sea water, in spite of the fact that the airport island Hulhumale has been raised artificially to the breath-taking elevation of two meters above sea level.

With a share of 35-40 percent of the GNP, tourism is a vital source of income for the Maldives. The second largest source of income is tuna fishing, which is done with hook and line in the traditional, environmentally friendly way, but which is declining rapidly due to dwindling fish stock. Apart from that, there is some farming, consisting mostly of coconuts and papaya.

Historically, the Maldives have for hundreds of years been a crossroads for different trade routes, and this is reflected in the population which ethnically and culturally is a unique amalgamation of Indians, Africans and Arabs. In addition to that, the island state has its own written language.

But the citizens in the 100 percent Muslim country are poor, and with a national economy the size of a small European city the Maldives are totally dependant upon foreign aid and loans if the tropical paradise is to be saved from slipping away into the expansive ocean.

Who will provide the necessary hundreds of millions of dollars, and is it worth the trouble in the first place? Couldn’t the tourists just go somewhere else for their holidays and the Maldivian population move some place where the risk of getting their feet wet is less imminent?

“It is a tiny nation, and by then (2100, ed. note) the population will perhaps be half a million people who could theoretically be displaced. But can we accept the disappearance of a country and an absolutely unique culture? That is the question we need to ask ourselves,” says Jonas Kjær.

Following the tsunami, from spring 2005 till late 2007 the Dane was stationed in the Maldives by the UNDP as aid coordination advisor, aiding the Maldivian government with the economic rehabilitation. There is no doubt in his mind as to the answer.

“No, we can not accept that a country just disappears,” he says.

According to Jonas Kjær, the recipe for saving the Maldives is “population and development consolidation”. The first step would be to gather the population of the Maldives, which at the moment is scattered over 200 islands, on just 10 to 15 islands. This would at the same time make an additional number of islands available to tourists, thereby making them co-finance the relocation and rehabilitation of the local population.

The next step would be to elevate the islands artificially by two to three meters, and to build solid walls along the coast safeguarding the islands against the tide and storms.

“Of course, there are some social, cultural and historical considerations to be made. You don’t just move a population that has inhabited the islands for maybe 2,000 years. That takes political guts,” says Jonas Kjær.

In fact, population and development consolidation, nicknamed “pop concert”, has been sitting in a drawer with the previous government for at least 10 years. Due to political reluctance and fear of the population’s reaction the programme hasn’t been initiated. There seems, however, to be a growing understanding amongst the population for a need to do something – an understanding that has been augmented substantially by the impact of the tsunami.

The younger and more informed citizens have especially acknowledged the need to move, and some are already on their way. More and more young Maldivians go to Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, the US or the UK to study, and after finishing their studies some of them decide to stay in their new country, adding to the brain drain of their native country.

This leaves a Maldivian population, which after 30 years of semi-dictatorial rule has embarked on a positive democratic development, to hope that paradise has not already been lost.

Sailing Surabaya’s River of Gold

The Jakarta Globe, Tim Hannigan

Boats beside the newer Kalimas wharf. (Photo: Tim Hannigan, JG)

Surabaya was once a name to conjure with. A century ago, the East Java capital was one of the great port cities of Asia, a place mentioned on docksides and in the pages of romantic novels the world over in the same breath as Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong.

This might surprise many modern residents and visitors, for though it is still Indonesia’s second-biggest city, Surabaya has very much faded from the world map. So I set out on foot in search of echoes of the maritime past that once made it the most important city of the Dutch East Indies.

A flood of cars, motorbikes and becaks (pedicabs) streams across Jembatan Merah, the Red Bridge that connects Surabaya’s Chinatown with the old colonial quarter. No one pays much attention to the strip of murky brown water that oozes beneath the bridge, but this waterway, Kalimas, the River of Gold, was the key to Surabaya’s trading past.

Dodging through the traffic, I take a left at the eastern end of the bridge and find myself walking along a dusty, potholed track beside the river. There is a smell of fish and mud. To the right a rank of crumbling warehouses — hipped roofs and stout columns betraying their Dutch pedigree — are all that remains to show that this was once one of the busiest wharf-sides in Asia.

From its earliest beginnings Surabaya was a port. Local legend has it that the origins of the city were in an epic battle between a shark ( sura ) and a crocodile ( buaya ) somewhere in the vicinity of Jembatan Merah. More tangibly, the city’s founding is officially dated to 1293 when a wandering Chinese fleet was defeated by a local army nearby, but the first historical records of a place named Surabaya only appear a century later — as a key entrepot of the mighty Majapahit Empire.

Without a natural harbor, Surabaya grew as a roadstead port. Sheltered from the storms of the Java Sea by the long, low island of Madura to the north, sailing schooners could anchor safely in the channel beyond the mouth of the Kalimas River. Only the smallest of the trading ships could navigate the mud-banks to come upstream, so most cargo was unloaded into open boats then hustled up the Kalimas to the trading houses and markets on the now decaying wharf along which I walked.

“River of Gold” was always a somewhat hyperbolic name. Today the dropping tide is showing slabs of slimy grey mud. The water is the color of cappuccino, and the only boat in view is a battered green tender ferrying passengers from one bank to the other. The riverside is lined with flimsy wooden shacks. A lean, grinning man reclining in the shade calls me over. His name is Mahmud and, like many of the people now inhabiting this part of Surabaya, he is originally from Madura.

“They’re all from the Dutch time,” he says, waving towards the flaking white warehouses. “A lot of Dutch tourists come here to take photos of them.”

I glance up and down the wharf, half-expecting to see a gaggle of sweating sightseers from Amsterdam, but I am the only foreigner in sight, and with a smile Mahmud concedes that by “many” he really means “a few.”

Nearby, a posse of thin, barefooted men unload sacks of dried fish from a truck into the dark, dusty interior of one of the warehouses. Watching over them is a Chinese man who says that his father bought this warehouse 50 years ago, at a time when the fortunes of the old Kalimas Wharf had already faded.

I walk on. Here and there a drooping bougainvillea bush adds a splash of bright color to the scene, but this area, once so prosperous, is now home to the poorest of industries — recycling of old bottles and sacks, and the gathering of garbage.

After the decline of the Majapahit Empire, Surabaya became a rowdy city-state on the fringes of the Mataram Kingdom. Despite a series of sieges and rebellions the goods — and the money — continued to flow up the Kalimas, from the spice gardens of Maluku, from the river ports on the jungle fringes of Kalimantan, from Sulawesi and beyond. The first Dutch trading operations were set up in the late 17th century, and in 1743 Mataram ceded full sovereignty of the city to the Dutch East India Company. The scene was set for Surabaya to become the biggest and most important of all Indonesia’s colonial cities.

Development of the sugarcane industry in the 19th century saw the port grow into a teeming, cosmopolitan metropolis. Many of the now crumbling warehouses that line the river date from this time. The seafaring writer Joseph Conrad came to Surabaya during its heyday. He set part of his novel “Victory” in the city.

The vibrancy of that era seems far away as I cross to the left bank of the river. Here there is a chaotic market where bulky Madurese women are haggling over baskets of bananas and mangoes. Trade still goes on here, but the produce has been brought in by land; the river, slithering past to the right, is ignored. Beyond the market I find myself picking along a narrow, walled-in alleyway beyond which I enter a kampong, a working class village-within-a-city. I am greeted with a near-hysterical chorus of “Hello mister!”

Beyond the kampong walls I can see stacked tiers of shipping containers. Surabaya is still a port — a big one — but changes in the world of seaborne trade in the late 19th century ensured the death of the old riverside wharfs.

With the arrival of fast steamships with schedules to keep, an old-fashioned roadstead port and a narrow river served by open boats was woefully inadequate. At the same time, railways to carry sugar straight from the mills in the south of the city to the port were laid. The Kalimas River became hopelessly congested. Sometimes it was entirely blocked with small, overloaded craft and, to make matters worse, the sandbanks at the mouth of the river could only be negotiated at high water. It could take days to load or unload a ship. Something had to be done, and after lengthy debate the building of a modern, deepwater port was finally sanctioned. In the 1920s, the new harbor of Tanjung Perak was built, north of the old riverside wharfs. Now even the biggest freighters could come alongside to be loaded straight from the dock. Kalimas was relegated to the sidelines, and the collapse of the sugar industry in the 1930s was its final death knell. The river silted up; the warehouses were locked and left to crumble.

But something still remains. I have lost sight of the river, but the excited kampong-dwellers point me down the narrowest of side alleys: “That way mister, there are lots of boats!”

I emerge in the evening sunlight on a crowded dockside. Huge international cargo ships now moor at Tanjung Perak — I can see the skeletal outlines of the cranes there, stark against the evening sky — but smaller inter-island traffic still comes to the river. The narrow waterway is crammed with boats. Evening sunlight falls on rust, flaking white paint, high prows and frayed rigging. There are decrepit tramp steamers and amongst them older wooden vessels. Some of them, though leaking diesel from the bilges, still have the graceful lines of pinisi , the sailing schooners of Sulawesi that were the original trading boats of Indonesia.

The first of these old wooden boats that I pass is, to my disappointment, no longer a working vessel. A man lounging on the steeply sloping deck tells me that it has been bought by a resort on Flores. When restoration is complete, it will ferry tourists to dive sites in Komodo National Park. But the next boat is still trading, though it is being loaded not with spice or sandalwood but with boxes of instant noodles, bound for the islands of the Kangean Archipelago east of Madura.

As I make my way along the dockside, crewmen from other boats call out to me. They come from all over Indonesia; many are from Kalimantan, or from the distant islands of Nusa Tenggara — Flores, Timor and Alor. Their destinations too are scattered across the archipelago.

A sailor greets me. His name is Abdullah. He comes from Banyuwangi at the eastern tip of Java. He is one of eight crewmen on an old wooden ship carrying onions to Bali.

The journey will take three days. “Now it’s the season of big waves,” says Abdullah, “so sometimes it takes longer.” From Bali they will sail another three days north to Makassar, then south across the Java Sea to Jakarta, then east along the coast, back to Surabaya. These are some of the oldest trade routes of the islands.

Abdullah makes Rp 50,000 ($5.25) a day. “Not enough to buy cigarettes,” he grumbles, and he rarely sees his wife and three children, back home in Banyuwangi.

A little further along the dock, men are padding along the narrowest of wooden gangplanks carrying huge loads onto another old wooden boat. They are bound for Balikpapan in Kalimantan, and they invite me onboard, laughing at my tentative steps along their precarious gangway. Onboard there is a smell of tar and diesel, salt and rotten wood. In the hollow belly of the ship there are bags of cement and bundles of reinforcement bar for building; on the roof of the wheelhouse there are orange septic tanks, and in a hold beside the engine room in the stern there are boxes of mineral water and biscuits. I am shown up a worn wooden ladder to the wheelhouse where the captain, Pak Subur, is watching over the loading of the ship.

“We always carry a mixed cargo like this,” he says, “and we don’t go until the boat is full. We make a loss if it’s not full.” Subur is 51 years old and comes from Kalimantan. He has been sailing on these wooden cargo boats all his life. The wheelhouse is starkly bare. There is only the wheel, and a tarnished copper bell hanging from the ceiling.

“On modern ships they have radar, compasses, radios. They need to look at maps before they go. They think they know about the sea, but they don’t.”

I am astonished. Doesn’t Subur even have a map or a compass?

He smiles and shakes his head. “We know the way.”

Subur has a small, dank cabin next to the wheelhouse; the other 12 crewmen sleep below. The name of the ship is Usaha Bersama (Joint Effort). Looking out from the wheelhouse I can see the mouth of the river, and beyond it the hazy line of Madura with the big freighters moored in its lee. Subur will sail that way the day after tomorrow, at midnight on the high tide. It will be three days — without navigational equipment — to Balikpapan.

Surabaya’s Kalimas River may no longer be at the center of world trade, and its warehouses and wharfs may have long since decayed. But there are still ships like Subur’s, plying routes that existed long before the sugar industry and the colonial era, and even before Mataram and Majapahit.

As I nervously edge back down the narrow plank to the quayside, one of the crew, a dark young man from Ambon, calls to me.

“Come with us, mister, to Balikpapan. There will be big waves, and for sure you’ll be scared, but it’s nice on a boat like this.” I’m not quite sure if he is serious, and I have other commitments to stop me running away to sea this time, but for a moment, in the late afternoon on this venerable old dockside, it’s a tempting offer …

One day at a time

The Jakarta Post, Sun, 11/01/2009 6:00 PM

Workers carry salt in Banyutami village, Gresik, East Java. Employees receive Rp 1,000 (US 10 cents) for each sack of salt and can earn Rp 80,000 per day. (Antara/Syaiful Arif)

11 Malaysians stranded in Tolitoli

Ruslan Sangadji, The Jakarta Post, Palu | Sun, 11/01/2009 5:38 PM

Eleven Malaysians, were found by fishermen in waters off Sulawesi on Sunday.

It was reported the speedboat they were taking ran out of fuel and caused them to be stranded out at sea. Three men died before being discovered by Tolitolu fisherman.

M. Ilham, the secretary of North Dampal subdistrict, said the Malaysians had received medical treatment at the Ogotua Public Health Center in North Dampal, Tolitoli.

“We will probably bury those who have died here [in North Dampal], too,” Ilham said.

He added they had departed from Lahar Batu, Malaysia, 8 days ago and were heading to the Philippines.

“The speedboat was overcapacity. There should only have been six people onboard,” he said.

Japan-ASEAN Friendship Boat in Manila

INQUIRER.net, 09:21:00 11/01/2009

Fuji Maru

MANILA, Philippines—The goodwill ship M/S Fuji Maru will arrive at Pier 13 of the Manila South Harbor on November 12, 2009 for a four-day port-of-call visit as part of the 36th Ship for Southeast Asia Youth Program (SSEAYP), the Japanese embassy said in a statement.

From Yokohama, Japan, where the brand new cruise ship will set sail on November 6, it will visit the Philippines as its first port-of-call in its two-month friendship cruise of Southeast Asia.

The M/S Fuji Maru, which will have on board 350 youth ambassadors, program officials, national leaders, and ship staff including 30 representatives from the Philippines, will then steam toward ports in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Brunei Darussalam before returning to Japan to culminate the 36th SSEAYP.

In each port of call in Southeast Asia, the youth ambassadors will participate in country programs which include home stay and various exchange programs with local people. While cruising, solidarity group activities, club activities, introduction of each country by songs, dances, and videos, as well as lifeboat drills, will keep the participants busy.

The SSEAYP was launched as the joint program among Japan and Asean countries in January 1974. It is sponsored and carried out annually by the government of Japan with the active participation of the Southeast Asian countries of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The country program in the Philippines is arranged and organized by the Philippine National Youth Commission.

This program seeks to promote friendship and mutual understanding among youths of Japan and Southeast Asian countries, to broaden their perspectives on the world, as well as to strengthen their motivations and abilities in international cooperation by participating in discussions, introductions of each country, and various exchange activities both onboard the ship and in the countries which they visit.