Thursday September 29th, 2011

Sailing to Sabang; Touring a tsunami tragedy turnaround

Langkawi is a peaceful, little island that rests on Peninsula Malaysia's north western coast, near the Thai border.

Sabang? Where is that? I've never heard of that before. Are they into sailing?

Sabang is a tiny island located on the other side of the famous Malacca Straits, on the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The province in northern Sumatra is Aceh which formerly had a heavy military presence trying to control a separatist movement. The capital city, Banda Aceh, grabbed the world's attention when a tsunami struck on 26 December 2004 and took 120,000 lives.

The inaugural 2011 Sabang International Regatta was an initiative of the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism to promote the region and encourage tourism and investment. It was also a way, said the Mayor of Sabang, to thank the world for the support it had shown Indonesia after the tsunami.

The regatta was open to both sail boats and powerboats.

On our Corsair 37, Zhuka, we had a head wind for most of the trip. Given it was a sailing/cruising regatta, we also had considerable weight on board - like five people, a spare set of sails (long story), a dinghy strapped to the trampoline nets and plenty of boxes of "other things". But we were still moving at 5-7kts - until we ran out of wind on the second night.

A fishing boat approached from the darkness. Friend or foe? A friend for life with broad grins when we offered two beers! They left and we could still smell the cloves of their distinctively Indonesian kretek cigarettes.

Day break. And we still sat. And sat. Five hours later, our skipper, Richard Eyre, signalled it was time to start the 20HP outboard and wear a penalty. We drove for 45 minutes before killing the outboard so that the sails could roar back to life in the new winds. 14kts. 15 kts. 19kts! Yippee!! It's time to fly on our C37!

Pulling into Sabang, the water was pristine and the island beautiful. We were taken to our mooring. It seemed like boat loads of very friendly Indonesian officials then boarded. I spoke to one official and he told me his wife had just given birth to his first child, Akhbar. Indeed he looked a proud father.

Accommodation on shore was basic but fine - and clean. And paid for. The Indonesians did not charge any registration fees for the inaugural regatta and provided accommodation and food at Sabang. On the second night, the Mayor of Sabang invited the crews from each of the boats to his official residence for dinner. The hospitality was again, generous and genuine. On multiple occassions the Mayor thanked everyone for visiting his beloved islands and urged us to spread the word and to return. He then appointed each of us as ambassadors to Sabang!

Paul and I didn't sail from Sabang and therefore needed to catch our flight from Banda Aceh. The organisers ferried us to the Express Ferry which then took us to the main island of Sumatra - free of charge again.

We had several hours before our plane departed, so we asked our taxi driver, Pak Fearman, to take us on a tour around Banda Aceh to learn something about the tsunami that struck this coastal city on 26 December 2004.

First stop was a massive barge that had been picked up by the tsunami and swept several kilometres inland before it was dumped on a road. Where it now sits as a poignant memorial to the force of mother nature. We then toured the memorial gardens adjacent to the barge. There were a couple of walls and a room lined with photos of scenes of devastation to streetscapes, city scapes and the most heart wrenching, people's lives. Pak Fearman was quiet and would only awkwardly look at some of the photos. His sister, along with seven others in her house, disappeared when the tsunami struck.

We then visited a memorial park named, Blang Padang that simply states, "Aceh thanks the world". There is a simple memorial shaped like a curling wave. A running/walking track around the perimeter of the park is lined with tablets, each assigned to an individual country, thanking it for the support it had shown Aceh at its time of need.

Then it was time to visit the Tsunami Museum. A police helicopter was one of the exhibits. It looked like it had gone through a monstrous washing machine. From the roof of the museum hung national flags from each of the donor countries. One 3D model showed ants, shaped like terrified people, trying to flee a towering wave. The acknowledgement and appreciation of the local people was unexpected and deeply humbling.

We continued toi the airport - but then, upon the insistence of Pak Fearman, we stopped for some famous coffee from Banda Aceh. And the coffee tasted good! Really good.

And then we were away. Flying out of Banda Aceh, we could see where the water had travelled. Just how big must have those waves been?

As the Mayor of Sabang had said, we are all Ambassadors of Sabang and Banda Aceh. It's a beautiful place and the people are wonderful. The Indonesian authorities seemed serious about making the waters of Indonesia far easier to sail in from a paperwork perspective which is great news. This is a special part of the world and whether you're in a Corsair trimaran or not, you need to sail there.

Videos and Photos

• To see actual and compelling footage of the tsunami and interviews with survivors, click onto this You Tube clip.
• To see photos of the sailing and Banda Aceh, click onto Corsair Marine's Facebook page.
• Click here to see the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism's report on the Sabang International Regatta visits the Devastating 2004 Aceh Tsunami Sites .

 

Written by Phil Johns, Marketing Manager for Corsair Marine.

Photos by Paul Koch.