Ende Maritime Museum is located at Jalan Mohamad Hatta, Village of King City, District of South Ende, East Nusa Tenggara province. Since inaugurated on August 14, 1996, this museum has a collection of over 22,000 species, of which 1000 species of marine mussels and 300 species of fish.

Maritime Museum because of the existence of creativity figures Goran SVD Fr Gabriel. Forerunner to the museum begins with his hobby, which little by little finally able to collect the type of collection until the amount to tens of thousands of pieces.

"Unforgettable memories is when I found a snail Oliva. The color is very beautiful. After comparing one house to another snail, the color variety. From there then I am happy to collect since 1981," said Father Goran.

Marine life which is the main attraction is the Maritime Museum of mollusks, sea clams, oysters, octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and so on. There are also various types of fish and shellfish, like shrimp, small crab, and crab.

In addition, there are also Echinodermata, sea cucumbers and sea urchins then, a turtle reptiles, turtles, sea dragons, monitor lizards, and iguanas. It was also found algae, seaweed, and other marine plants, as well as coral, sea coral rubble mainly found as a result of fishing using explosives. It's personal collection in addition to these findings, partly derived from public participation.

Maritime Museum collection of many who came from Ile Ape Subdistrict, Lembata district, East Nusa Tenggara, which is the birthplace of Father Goran. He was born in the fishing village of Tagawiti on 14 April 1941, then was ordained a priest the first of the region Ile Ape on July 31, 1971. Everyday SVD Fr Gabriel Goran Goran was called Father. Father often replaced as pastor or priest by the Catholic religion.

One kind of unique collections at the Museum Bahari is a mermaid cow believed to have gone extinct since 50 years ago. Residents found the mermaid was in the year 2000 on the island of Koa, Ende. It is estimated that, until now which can still be found in the waters of the mermaid pig East Flores regency.

"Since the pay great attention to the sea, if the recreation center along with the brothers (Latin = brother, as to the prospective pastor) I often take to the beach Lembata. By carrying plastic bags, each brother could take a variety of God's creation shells scattered on the beach , "said Father Goran who become orphans when sitting in fourth grade elementary school, and orphaned while sitting in the eighth grade.

Sparked the idea to build a museum around 1990 when the type collection of male graduates of St. Paul Seminary Ledalero, Maumere, Sikka, it was all over the room at the Convent of St. Joseph, Ende. Here he lived everyday and occasionally teaches at the Orphanage Shades of Love, in the same city. Between St. Joseph Convent and Museum Bahari is only about 500-meter.

The effort helped the establishment of museums engineering student from the University of Delft Holland Indonesia, bagia Suwira. Suwira time doing real work in college Flores to examine the damage caused by the earthquake December 12, 1992.

Seeing so many types of collections Fr Goran, Suwira include the collection in the exhibition in the Netherlands of 250 key chains slug Oliva, and 30 sheets of woven necktie made of typical Ende commonly called Lio. From the exhibition was finally obtained from the sale of Rp 1.65 million.

Most of the money was handed over to the organization Goran Pater in the Netherlands as a stock. After the plan promoted the establishment of the organization's Maritime Museum, collected a fund of Rp 26 million.

With the capital that the museum was built. Provincial Council SVD (Societas Verbi Divini or the Divine Word) Ende decided to build the building and took the contents of the building, while the Government provides land Ende. Regent Ende, Frans Gedowolo-time Maritime Museum, inaugurated in 1996.

MANAGING MUSEUM

From the love of the sea, along with Fr Goran Kalianus Nusa Nipa write books and Wealth Sea Maritime Museum. In some notes Fr Goran mentioned, the purpose of establishing the museum backdrop fact that NTT is an area of ​​islands and most areas of the ocean contains a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and types of biota that need to be preserved professionally.

In addition, in West Timor, especially Ende, yet there are also museums that collect marine species of marine life. The museum is also intended to support science and become a source of information and marine studies center, especially for the younger generation.

Goran Pater is also currently preparing a book manuscript that contains the drama of the sea. The characters in the play was chosen from marine animals.
"In the last six months I could not resist a strong desire to write up until now has been completed in manuscript form written four plays and several poems. So also the two writing drama of two brothers," he said.

He plans to make books for children. According to Father Goran, the message about the sea in the form of poetry, song, or drama, would be more attractive and readily accepted the children.

Source: hurek.blogspot.com