Bali's Secret Fleet

01 As the fleet gathers offshore after the night’s fishing, a selerek enters Pengambengan Harbour in western Bali to unload its catch. Beneath extravagant masthead decorations, the portrait of a Muslim saint watches over the crew. All photography by Jeffrey Mellefont Bali’s secret fleetA GLITTERING ARMADA These could be the world’s most spectacular traditional fishing craft, but their home port is a remote estuary on the Indonesian island of Bali that few visitors ever see. ANMM research associate, Jeffrey Mellefont, unveils a boatbuilding tradition steeped in ritual, religion and magic. 24 SIGNALS 110 MARCH–MAY 2015 01 01 02 03 AGAINST THE EARLY TROPICAL LIGHT The harbour is criss-crossed by smaller as they enjoy the sights, colours, tastes and and west takes a big swing inland to skirt from China and India, the Middle East and This fishing fleet is of a Balinese dawn, a huge fleet of ornate outrigger boats or tenders, ferrying in the aromas of Balinese culture. This most an extensive delta of marshes and Europe. All have left their mark, although fishing boats rides the sea. Rising high over weary crews or shuttling blocks of ice out famous of the Indonesian islands is known, mangroves behind the estuary, diverting today Bali is an unusual Hindu remnant certainly the largest- their big timber hulls are huge, peaked stem to the boats at anchor. Ashore there’s of course, for the lavish decorations of its traffic kilometres away from the boats among a largely Islamic archipelago. scale assemblage and stern posts, each decorated with the a frenetic hubbub of activity as each boat’s temples, sculptures and carvings – indeed, where they crowd into the river mouth, When an independent Indonesian state same spiralling, serpentine motif. catch is weighed, iced and boxed. There are for the creativity of its many artists, painters, largely unseen except by locals. was born in 1945, ending more than of movable cultural A thicket of masts is surmounted by food and coffee stalls to refresh countless sculptors, weavers, dancers and musicians. This fishing fleet is in many ways one 300 years of Dutch occupation, its struggling elaborate crows’ nests and other strange workers, and makeshift welding shops set And yet very few tourists ever see the heritage in Bali of the highlights of Indonesia’s economy depended heavily upon traditional, devices whose function, if any, is far from up to repair broken gear brought ashore extraordinary decorated fishing fleet that contemporary maritime heritage, locally built sailing vessels for transport, from the boats. Hundreds of tonnes evident. Some look like multi-coloured lands this catch – even though it’s certainly maintaining some historical traditions trade and fishing among its many thousands of lemuru (sardines) or tongkol (small crowns or miniature mosques. Long bundles the largest-scale assemblage of movable of boatbuilding – and its associated cultural, of islands. Until the late 20th century, mackerel) are disappearing into trucks and of striped spars bedecked with tassels and cultural heritage in Bali. Moreover, it’s just ritual and spiritual aspects – at a time Indonesia had the world’s largest and most the panniers of an armada of motorcycles. bunting are reminiscent of stowed sailing possibly the most spectacular fishing of rapid development and modernisation. diverse fleet of sail-powered timber craft, Some are bound for canning or fish-meal rigs, but there’s no sign of sail cloth. Instead, fleet anywhere in the world today, or perahu – the generic Indonesian term factories along the shore. Others are heading The Indonesian archipelago, sprawling there are rows of rustic, long-shaft diesel if its combination of traditional timber for a timber vessel. From one-man outrigger to local markets in villages and towns all just to Australia’s north, has a long and outboard motors perched along the vessels’ construction and rich, ritual decoration dugouts to large, lumbering traders, over Bali where the fish will be sold either vibrant maritime history. It was populated gunwales, three, four or more per boat. is the measure. they came in a fantastic variety of shapes, fresh or as pindang, an age-old brine- in prehistoric times by seafaring people styles and rigs representing many local One by one these exotic-looking vessels, pickling technique that’s both a preservative Where could you hide something from mainland Asia, who developed diverse, boatbuilding traditions. Lacking motors and many of them more than 20 metres long, and a flavour enhancer. as conspicuous as this glittering armada? localised cultures. Over the centuries any navigational, labour-saving or safety thread their way between sandbanks It’s easy, really. The vast majority of a number of powerful states arose there, By late morning it’s over. The fish and equipment, they were built on beaches using to cross a wide, silted-up harbour before Balinese tourism focuses on the east of this exploiting the archipelago’s position the workers have gone and most of the simple hand-tools and drew on age-old, mooring four or five abreast at the water’s 150-kilometre-long island. That’s where its as a crossroads of early maritime trade, gaudy fishing boats have motored home pre-industrial shipwright and seamanship edge where hundreds of people cram grandest old kingdoms arose and where which included valuable spices that were 01 The home port of Bali’s secret fleet, to moor in a large, sheltered river estuary skills. The lives of their sailors were a busy, scruffy beach. Team after team we find its most notable antiquities, most endemic to just a few of its remotest in the remote Perancak estuary. just two kilometres to the east along the unimaginably spartan. A pair of selerek in the foreground share of labourers wade out to the boats, spectacular volcanoes and rice terraces, and islands. Swirling through the islands – coast. Some have simply anchored off the the name Dinar Istanbul; the male is at left, neck-deep, and stagger back shouldering now its most overcrowded beaches, resorts and around Bali, close to their centre In recent decades, however, with increasing the female at right. estuary, because later that afternoon their huge baskets overflowing with fish. and holiday strips. The boats’ home port, the – were many currents of world history, development and prosperity, most of 02 Paid by the basket-load, labourers wade large crews will be shuttled back on board It takes many teams to empty the tonnes Perancak estuary and nearby Pengambengan all borne by sea, mostly by trade but these sailing craft have disappeared or are ashore with about 120 kilograms of small to spend another night scouring the sea off of fish in each hold, before the next boat harbour where they unload, are on Bali’s sometimes by conquest. In this way the evolving into more modern, mechanised mackerel (or two pikul – the standard measure Bali’s southern coast. of what a man can carry on his shoulder). takes its place. There are dozens and dozens far-less-visited western end, facing the island Indonesian islands were swept by Buddhism forms. The fishing fleet of Perancak in 03 Every day hundreds of tonnes of schooling waiting offshore for their turn to unload the Many visitors to Bali will see those fish for of Java across the Bali Strait. Moreover, the and Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, western Bali represents some of these older fish are distributed to canneries, fish-meal night’s catch. sale in local village markets or in restaurants south-coast arterial road that links Bali’s east along with their accompanying cultures national boatbuilding traditions in transition factories and markets. 26 SIGNALS 110 MARCH–MAY 2015 AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM 27 – although not so much those of Bali itself, Variants of this Madurese hull form The selerek fleet of as of the nearby Muslim island of Madura. were used as trading, fishing or general- purpose craft, with or without decks or western Bali represents Hindu Bali, with its focus turned largely deckhouses, and hoisting a huge triangular inland to its mountains, rice terraces and sail laced between long bamboo spars. the well-noted temples, was not in fact a major centre The distinctive Madurese style of rudder, of boatbuilding or sea trading. Indonesian talent for a long, heavy blade slung over one side that That’s notwithstanding the thousands was shifted laboriously to the lee quarter cultural borrowings of small, dugout-hulled outrigger sailing on each tack when under sail, is still in use canoes that its coastal communities and fusion today. Motorised, they often mount diesel continue to use daily in a subsistence fishery outboards along the gunwale, with long, in adjoining waters. Called jukung, their trailing propeller shafts that can be raised fancifully carved, gape-jawed and bug-eyed from the water to avoid fouling ropes or bows feature in many tourist promotions. nets. According to their location and details 01 02 Several other Indonesian islands, with their of construction, these Madurese workhorses own distinctive cultures, languages and were known by various terms, including periodic blessings during the vessel’s life, boatbuilding traditions, are better known celepak, lete, pakesan and payangan. call for the sacrifice of a chicken or goat for producing wide-ranging seafarers The big, fully decked and highly decorated and the sprinkling of their blood, holy water and traders. These include the Bugis and versions used today in the Balinese fishery and flower petals. The high stem post is Makassans of Sulawesi, Muslim people are known there as selerek. Ordered by a focus of rituals, and often houses a shrine whose extensive voyages took them entrepreneurial ship-owners living on the or altar (sanggah) where these offerings are to northern Australia in past centuries western end of Bali, where many Muslims made.

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