Indonesian ferry goes down off of Timor

An Indonesian ferry has sunk off of W. Timor, in Eastern Indonesia. According to the BBC website there were at least 100 passengers and 74 have been rescued.

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago and getting around in this country means boats and buses for most people. I have used many Indonesian ferries, from Lombok, Bali, Java, Sumatra and the smaller Mentawai islands. They are inevitably overloaded with people and cargo and many of them do not have any electronic navigation equipment.

Taking a ferry can be an adventure for sure and my recommendation, if you are going on an overnighter, is to sleep on the rear upper deck. If the thing capsizes the last place you want to be is inside a cabin. Also you might think about flotation at some point. Surfers will have boards, but there are usually scanty life jackets. I think for a person traveling around Indonesia for a few months and who is planning to use the ferries extensively its not a bad idea to try to get hold of an airline life jacket.