Motor Cycle Trip to Perancak Harbor

Well, it's another exciting motor cycle trip for me. This time I headed to a natural harbor, called Perancak Beach. I had been there during the pandemic, and I was curious how the current situation there.

Riding my motor cycle early morning, I went through villages and rice farm. The sun was still low in the east behind me. I could see my shadow on the ground beside me as I rode.

About half an hour later, I arrived at the river bank of Perancak River in the area of traditional boats dock. I parked my motor cycle and rushed toward the dock.

I saw a lot of small boats parked on the river. This river was actually an outlet of the main river hence the water was calm and there's no current. It's more like a lake.

It seemed that there was not much going on. All was quite and calm. Just like the water in the river. I walked closer to the river only to find that the ground was so muddy. I did not think it was a good idea for me to explore there.

I did see some men talking not far from the docks. I thought they were local fishermen. Maybe they did not go out and caught fish this day.

I decided to ride else where since the ground on the river bank was too muddy to walk. I headed toward the follow the road to the river end, getting closer to the sea.

Five minutes later, I arrived on the other part of Perancak harbor where the land on the river bank was more solid. Being closer with the sea, the ground also had sea sand in it. I saw a bigger boat approaching the river bank. Some people were waiting on the ground.

More boats were coming. Hmm, this was the perfect time for me to arrive in this place so I could see the activity of unloading fish from the boats.

A small boat approached. More people arrived on the beach and hurried to the the small boat. The fish from the boat were put in styrofoam boxes or plastic bags. The people carried the fish out of the boats. I wonder if those people bought directly from the fishermen or are they the family of the fishermen.

A fisherman was putting some fish to a bucket. I walked toward him and asked what was the fish called. "It's sardine." he replied. Sardine was quite a good taste fish when cooked right but it had really strong fish smell.

Suddenly, I found out that there were more people around me. I did not realize there were more people coming. The people that took the fish from the boat began to sell the fish on the spot. And there were also people coming to buy the fish. I guess it was less expensive to buy the fish on this beach rather than buying the in the proper market or even shopping center.

An elderly lady came to me and offered me to buy fish. Well, it did not hurt to ask what she offered, but if she offered sardine, definitely no thanks.

She asked me to follow her to her merchandise. It was little fish in the styrofoam box like all the seller had. She said the fish were baby tuna mackerel. Okay, that's fine. After a little bit of price haggling, she would sell me 1 kilogram of fish for USD 1. A good price if you asked me.

She said she was going to weigh the fish to a kilogram with her scale. I saw the weights was a bit rusty. She had a stone, and a smaller weights along with the rusty one kilogram weights on her scales. Was the total weight of those one kilogram?

She put the fish into a plastic bag, and handed it to me. "That's a kilogram of tuna mackerel." I paid 15,000 rupiah or USD 1 dollar.

After shopping for a kilogram fish, I walked around a little bit around the beach. It was not easy to take photos around while carrying the fish. (Hmm.) And the sun was getting hotter as morning faded. I decided to conclude my motorcycle trip in Perancak harbor and headed home.

At home, I was so curious about the fish that I bought. Was it really one kilogram? At the kitchen, I put the fish on the scales, and then I knew exactly how much was the weight.