Labuan Bajo – The Nadelyn K
I spent an afternoon photographing boats and activity in the Labuan Bajo port from which our dive boat operated. The port can accommodate several large cargo vessels or ferries on its outermost wharf, along with a hundred or more smaller wooden fishing and tourist boats tied along the piers connecting the large wharf to the town. The port facilities are crowded, and sometimes the dive boats have to tie up several abreast – getting to our boat in the morning usually required crossing over one or more other boats. In this post I’m sharing photographs of people on the Nadelyn K, a freighter that offers deck space for people traveling along the coasts of Flores and adjacent Indonesian islands.
The purple-hulled Nadelyn K had been in port regularly during the two months that I was at Labaun Bajo for divemaster training in Komodo’s waters. In addition to freight coming off and on the Nadelyn K there was usually also a crowd of people negotiating a wooden gangplank. People getting onto the boat would disappear under a tent-like tarp, and I was really curious to take a look. A polite request to the man who was directing activities got me up the gangplank and into the action. The passengers were staking out their spots and organizing their belongings on cushioned mats. Blue tarp material was stretched over a framework of pipes, with enough material to cover the sides in the case of bad weather.
The passengers in this unusual arrangement were friendly, with most gladly taking a moment to look into the camera, allowing me to capture portraits of a slice of Indonesian people. They were traveling in a mode unfamiliar to me, and definitely not first class – but they were happy and relaxed and excited to get underway. After a few hours of being tied up at the wharf, the Nadelyn K’s lines were thrown off and the freighter was off to Bima, a town on the coast of the Indonesian island just west of Flores.
