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| Day 93 |
08 July 2000 |
| Aru Sea |
| "The Fishing Gods Smile " |
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Two days ago I translated 'Selat Nerong' as 'Selat Strait'. It
goes to show how tired I was when I wrote up my journal. Selat
means Strait in Indonesian.
We have had two lucky strikes with the fishing. Ben caught a
nice little tuna that proved very tasty for dinner last night.
Jane fried it up and served it over a delicious gado-gado. Then
this morning Mick caught a tea-towel. It had been hanging out to
dry and must have blown into the sea. Jane was happy to have it
back, but 'I would rather have a fish,' she said.
This afternoon we draw in sight of Adi Island off to port and
some time later the mountainous coast of Irian Jaya shows above
the horizon. On the old VOC chart Adi Island is called 'Marasich
Landt', and the land immediately to the north of it is called
'Nieu Zelant'. This area was not charted by Duyfken as her track
was further south and she would not have seen the lands that we
are now seeing. The legend on the chart says this area was
charted by a Jasper Janssen de Jonge, but gives no indication of
the name of his ship.
Further east of 'Niew Zelant' is a squiggle with the label
'Gonnongapy' which closely resembles the Indonesian 'Gunung Api'
or 'Mountain of Fire'. Several volcanoes in the archipelago bear
this name today including the one in Banda. The squiggle
probably represents the distant mountain range that we can see
ahead. Further to the east again is a section of coastline
called 'Os Papuas'. The next land to the east, depicting the
area around the Digul River and False Cape, is not connected to
'Os Papua', and neither is 'Nova Guinea' which depicts the west
coast of Cape York Peninsula. The cartographers wisely did not
commit to which parts were joined to what.
We are seeing these lands for the first time and, with their
chart in front of us, it is not hard to imagine we are looking
at them through the eyes of the ancient Dutch sailors. What must
have been going through their minds as they surveyed these
unknown lands? What imaginary riches gleamed back from these
coasts and mountains to spur them on into who knows what
dangers?
We have made fair progress to the north-east today which is
gratifying. I want to get close to the Irian coast to try to
pick up a favourable stream that my current atlas shows runs
along there. After stemming adverse currents for so many miles
already on this voyage, anticipating a favourable one feels like
an act of naive optimism. But even having no current at all
would be wonderful after what we are used to.
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Peter Manthorpe
Master
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