Boom Marina Boom Beach has become a new tourist icon in the city of Banyuwangi. Its location is close to the center of Banyuwangi, making it easy for anyone to reach it. This convenience is supported by the existence of several alternative roads to the beach, making it more tempting for people to come here. Moreover, the entrance ticket is fairly cheap. It’s perfect for morning walks or hanging out, and it’s definitely mandatory for out-of-town and foreign tourists to visit it.
Historically, Banyuwangi’s Boom Beach was once an important port and was known as Boom Harbor. Not an ordinary port, but an international port because foreign-flagged ships can dock to carry out loading and unloading activities. The dock facilities are also fairly modern, because they are equipped with railroad tracks to speed up loading and unloading activities. In the past, the pier was equipped with roller rails to facilitate the process of transporting goods to get on/off the ship.
So great was the potential and strategic position of Boom port on the tip of the island of Java at that time, that Governor Thomas Stanford Raffles (1811-1816) who at that time held British power in the archipelago, had sparked a plan to place Banyuwangi as a hub port for Southeast Asia with the Australian continent.
During the Dutch colonial period, the Boom Banyuwangi port was also used as a banana export port to Australia and a copra storage warehouse.
Behind the story of the past glory of Boom port, today’s generation may not know much that Boom Harbor was once one of the departure points (embarkation) for Hajj.
To reach Mecca, the prospective Hajj pilgrims use ships, and because there is no dock that is able to lean on a large ship, the prospective Hajj pilgrims from Banyuwangi are transported by small boats to reach a large ship in the middle of the sea.
The journey on the Hajj to return to Banyuwangi takes up to about 1 year! You can imagine how hard it was to perform the Hajj at that time.
The departure of the prospective Hajj pilgrims from Banyuwangi on February 24, 1924 was escorted by a small boat to the S.S Rotti ship in the middle of the sea, because there was no dock that large ships could lean on (via FB Group Banjoeawangi Tempo Doeloe).
Some facts about the remnants of the past glory of the Boom Banyuwangi port in the form of a pier, a fish auction place, and a warehouse.
Currently, the word Boom is less well known and is only heard around the harbor, its meaning is the structure of the heavy equipment frame (crane) or the control beam of the boat sail (horizontally) which is located under the mast (vertical). It could be that the term boom means the wood used on ships in ancient times or the pier made of wood that existed at that time.
Local residents in the vicinity divide the port of Boom Banyuwangi into two areas, namely Boom Meneng (=silent) and Boom Ombak.
The port in front of the warehouse is called Boom Meneng because the water is still without waves, while the one facing the Bali Strait used to have a pier, and it is called Boom Ombak because the sea water is rippling or wavy.
One side of Boom Beach is near the cross bridge, this part is what local residents call boom meneng, because the water is relatively calm or still without waves.
Around the 1950s, the booming era of Boom port began to fade. At that time, with the development of technology, large ships began to operate and activities at the port increased, while the condition of Boom beach which became the estuary of several rivers experienced siltation from river mud. Large ships have difficulty docking.
At its peak, the port function was moved to the Ketapang area which has deep sea water, which is now known as the Ketapang Port to serve passenger crossings to Bali and Tanjung Wangi Port for export-import activities. Since then, Boom Harbor has only been used to lean on local fishing boats.
In the 1980s, Boom port was used as the location for THR (People’s Amusement Park) with various entertainment and games available in it. However, after experiencing a long vacuum with poorly maintained conditions.
After decades of untouched change, the turning point of attention to Boom Beach began to occur in 2012. That was the first time the annual Banyuwangi Festival tourism agenda was held. There are two agendas of activities held at Boom Beach, namely the Gandrung Sewu Festival and Beach Jazz.
Because the two festivals are held regularly every year in the same place, the existence of Boom Beach has begun to be noticed. Various improvements and improvements were also made to bring back the image of this legendary Banyuwangi beach.
The development of the Boom Beach area conceptually began when BUMN PT Pelindo III and the Banyuwangi Regency Government collaborated to make a plan to build a marina or cruise ship dock at Boom Beach Banyuwangi on September 11, 2015.
Boom Marina Banyuwangi Beach is predicted to be the largest yacht special port as well as the first integrated cruise ship dock in Indonesia.