Pak Wayan I am not blaming Indonesian government ok.
I am an Indonesian citizen too, I realize how big Indonesia is and how many island we have here. What I am saying is with this World heritage site with so many visitors, isn't it necessary to have some sort of aeroplane or helicopter to safeguard over visitors? even to monitor illegal fishing or such?
I remember 2004 when Mr Kamdani got lost in batu bolong, if I am not mistaken there are over 60 boats looking for him for days. How does one calculate the cost of this?
I think this is a decent suggestion and something to think about. Is this so wrong?
In this case actually what really happened was they did not use their regular captain who was on his days off at the time. And it was late afternoon when this happens. Most of the boats in Labuan Bajo are woodens boats on yanmar engines, covering no more than 10knots/hour. Starting from Labuan Bajo, which takes over an hour just to get to tatawa kecil, how far could they cover? On the other hand, currents in Linta Strait are running up to 12knots/hr. If there were a plane it isn't hard to imagine how much better their chances of being found would be.
I was on an accident in Alor a few years back. The local boat we were on flipped and I drifted over 3 hours, with only wetsuit on. if it weren't for a local fisherman I would be dead for sure. I often discuss this with my friends and some came up with an idea of carrying portable flare like the one discussed earlier. But we all came to a conclusion doubting how effective this would be, given that no one is watching out for anyone who might be in trouble and ready to help them
And actually, Alor is a bit better off than komodo in the way that they have cell phone coverage there, but komodo does not have. So now I dive with a cell phone on remote areas provided that they have coverage there.
IMHO, this is something all Indonesian watersport operators, police and yes, even the government has to think about.
