A Wooden Sailing Boat near Lemon island of Manokwari

I live in Manokwari city that is located in the Dorey bay. Everyday various types of ships from wooden boat to cargo ships and passenger ships arrive in and depart from this bay. The availability of superzoom digital camera revolutionize my photographic experience. Ships and boats are some of my favorite subjects that I like to shoot using my Nikon Coolpix P500. Yesterday, I was traveling with 4 Polish tourists to Mansinam island and Lemon island in this Dorey bay. We enjoyed snorkeling and bird watching. For that excursion I saw a kasuari (in captivity), some tern bird, a beautiful pigeon (look at the photograph below) in Mansinam island, and tens of frigate birds flying over the sea.

After spending several hours walking around the island, we continued our trip to Lemon island by a motorized outrigger boat. The boat was made of wood and there was some sea water leaking into the hull while the boat was moving. But it was quite small. So, the outrigger boat brought us safely from Mansinam island to Lemon island. Landing on Lemon island, we walked to the house of Om Jordan - a Papuan who regularly picks up plastic bottles that land on the island to keep its beach clean. Unfortunately, this old man was not there. He was going to Jayapura. There was an old woman who is his sister. She received us in his wooden house. I asked a local Papuan young man to climb a coconut tree and pick 5 coconut fruits for me and the Polish tourists. We enjoyed coconut juice and its meat as our lunch that day. The high tide was coming. The white sandy beach of Lemon island was now covered with sea water. We saw wastes from Manokwari city were drifting on the surface of the sea. Many of them would land on Mansinam, Lemon and Raimuti islands. I hope that one day, city dwellers of Manokwari will stop throwing their wastes into the sea. Let's keep our beach, sea and coral reef clean.

The cost of these coconuts was fifteen thousand rupiahs. After we felt that our stomach had been full again, we decided to continue our tour around the island. We walked along the white sandy beach which was now covered with sea water. The water level reached our knees.

When we arrived at the south east point of the Lemon island, I saw a wooden boat anchoring between Lemon and Mansinam islands. Its LBP was around 25 meters. Its hull was not the same as a Norwegian catamaran sailing yacht mooring at a harbor near fish market in Sanggeng area of this city which I saw last August.

This wooden boat has one mast which is used for sailing. It looks like a traditional wooden boat called Phinisi - a type of sailing boat in Indonesia whose designed is similar to schooner. I think that it is a luxurious cruise boat or diving boat that is driven by a marine screw propeller. The combination of diesel engine and sail makes this boat as an efficient hybrid boat system that consumes less fuel.
The wooden boat might be used by tourists who want to enjoy shipwreck diving in this bay. Manokwari regency also has got several coastal areas that are covered by coral reef. They are nice snorkeling destinations. I took my digital camera out of my bag and turned on. I aimed it at the boat and pulled the zoom lever around the shutter release button. With its 36 x optical zoom lens, I could magnify the picture of the phinisi boat until it looked big enough on the LCD screen of the camera. I shot the boat several times. To increase their loading speed on the internet, I resized the photographs and reduced their pixel quality using Adobe photoshop software.

We finished our tour around Mansinam and Lemon islands at around 4 p.m. By another motorized outrigger boat whose hull was also leaking with sea water, we went back to Ketapang boat station.
Manokwari is a very nice tourist destination. If you are interested in visiting this city for snorkeling over pristine coral reef or hiking and birdwatching in Arfak mountains or even going together with fishermen to catch fish, you can contact me - Charles Roring - via my email: peace4wp@gmail.com. I will be happy to guide you around the regency and make sure that you will enjoy your trip in this tropical island.