Putu woke me very early saying get up, we have to go shortly
to clear in, then she realised all the clocks were still on Darwin time, and
said sorry, go back to sleep. It was too late, the exotic Asian smells and
sounds as well as the sun shining through the hatch had me excited to get
cracking.
My gut feeling had me wanting to go with Riley, but Putu
wanted to go with Michael (even though he was very expensive) just because he
approached us first. (the Indonesian way)
So off we go, heading back to the snake pit at the water’s edge
with the dinghy filled with ten jerry cans. Suddenly there are brown hands
jostling over the dinghy, all the jerry cans quickly disappear and several
people fighting over the anchor as we step ashore and try and look cool, as we
calmly stroll up to the little road side shops and tables and chairs to cut a
deal with Michael.
He’s trying to negotiate this turn key contract that
includes SIM cards with 6GB of data, fuel delivery and clearance all in one.
Suddenly some angry guy kicks the shit out of our jerry cans and they fly in
all directions as all shit breaks loose.
Angry men are yelling at each other and pointing fingers and
it quickly degenerated into a very ugly situation as we were ushered to one
side.
Buying fuel in jerry cans is illegal in Indonesia as fuel in
the service stations is subsidised by the government, but it’s the only way a
cruiser can get fuel and there is always someone willing to break the law for a
few bucks.
Suddenly I see a cop join in, but when I mentioned it to
Michael he just laughed as it was only a parking cop with a fancy uniform.
It turns out Michael was a good business man with a small
heart. I had him pretty well sussed out. He was going to pocket every cent and
all the others would get nothing and some of them were really pissed off.
Putu insisted we will go to the fuel station to ensure the
fuel was clean (so we could witness firsthand the price) and he knew we were
onto him as he had grossly inflated the fuel price, so to keep the peace, he
decided to palm the fuel off to the other men and we chose my man Riley to take care
of this and he gave his boys some money to look after our dinghy.
So, now that the money was getting shared around, they all
seemed happy and we could relax a bit. We did two fuel runs with Riley, topping
our tank and filling all the jerry cans, then packing them all away. It was hot
back breaking work and I was glad when it was done, then we had to wait until
two o’clock for the clearance to begin.
For the whole time I was dressed in long pants and a nice
shirt as this is expected attire by the Indonesian officials, so I was hot and sweaty all
day. Finally, after hours of waiting, one by one they all started arriving.
There were two guys from immigration, one guy from quarantine, and one guy from
customs, so I had to make two dinghy rides to get them all out to Sirocco.
By now the sea breeze had kicked in and they were all
shitting themselves as we flogged our way through the chop as I knew none of
them would be able to swim.
Once on-board Sirocco, formal proceedings began. It was all
very official with lots of papers shuffled and stamped, lots of photos taken
and lots of big fancy signatures.
We bribed them subtly with cool lemonade and Toblerone’s
that worked perfect. One guts ate
several as well as putting a few melted ones in his pocked for Ron.
I must have signed about twenty times and they were so
impressed that I had an official boat stamp (that I made in Bali) they made me
stamp every signature and every other document.
Suddenly the big quarantine man says your vessel is now
officially out of quarantine and you can now go and lower your quarantine
flag…….NOW.
I didn’t know if he was taking the piss or not, but I quickly went
and lowered the flag as he said.
About half an hour later and another ten signatures and boat
stamps and we were done, then the cameras came out and it was time for the
obligatory selfies. With handshakes all round and nonstop thank you's, we were
now officially signed into Indonesia and we can legally stay for three years
and enjoy what this beautiful place has to offer.
Then I had to ferry all the officials across to the other
boat (Lyre) who had arrived this morning.
Well, it wasn’t quite over yet, we still had to check in
with the Harbour Master, and the quarantine man had told
us to report to his office to receive a green health book (whatever that is),
so we still had a bit more running around to do yet.
Michael's driver took us first to the quarantine office and
once done there, we drove to the Harbour Masters office arriving just on
closing, but we managed to get everything done there before he knocked off for
the day.
By the time we got back to the beach it was just on dark, so
I raced out to Sirocco and dropped off the great stack of documentation and
quickly changed into shorts and t-shirt and headed back to the beach for some
celebration beers and a feed at the night market.
All the chairs in
this bar were made from old motorbike tires
We hooked up with the multinational crew from Lyre and all
headed up to the nigh market. We ordered fried and grilled squid, fried chicken
and nasi goreng washed down with heaps of Bintang.
The bakery buss
It was a great night but we were all very tired so by ten
o’clock we were all heading back to the beach. We bought Riley and his boys
some beers and after, they swam out in the dark to retrieve our dinghy for us so
we didn’t even get wet feet. Look after them and they will look after you.
Back on Sirocco, I didn’t tell Putu I setup a motion
detection alarm and I waited for her to set it off and it scared the shit out
of her. Yep, works perfect.
It wasn’t long and we were both sound asleep.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
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