Before leaving Penrhyn atoll for Christmas Island, I was told via e-mail by another cruiser, that no advance notice of arrival was necessary. All that was required, was to hail customs on channel 16 upon entering territorial waters. My cruising friend also warned me that Christmas Island customs and immigration was very unorganized, so be patience! On June 4th, in the dead of night, we arrived and anchored Long Windid outside the interior lagoon of Christmas Island in 12' of water on a sandy bottom which made for good holding. Early the next morning, using the VHF radio, I tried to get anyone's attention on shore. After hours of attempts, I finally was able to make contact with the marine operator and was told that she would contact customs and we should standby. Hours went by but no communication was received. Once again, I began my attempts over the air waves to get the attention of the marine operator or anyone else on the island who would answer. After a while, with so many calls unanswered, I began to feel like I had become a nuisance and now we were purposely being avoided. No further attempts were made the rest of the day. The three of us were stranded on the boat with little food and had a strong desire to get ashore, get what we needed and get on our way. The following morning, the marine operator finally did contact us and stated that customs would be out to the boat shortly and we should once again stand by. More hours passed, then we were told plans have changed. Now we needed to pick up the agents at the wharf in town and bring them to the boat. Once back on board, the customs agent began his process of checking us in. Suddenly out of nowhere, we were boarded by another group of six people who were the immigration officer and her family. Eleven rather large people were now crowded around our small cockpit table. All the commotion on board was like sitting at a holiday dinner table with separate and different conversations swirling around while papers were being passed about in confusion. My head spinning, I finished signing the last few pages. The immigration officer asked how long we were planning to stay. I told her, this was to be a Stop and Go, (although we had already spent forty long hours waiting to be processed in). Fuel and provisions were all we needed and we wanted to leave as soon as possible. It was already midafternoon and she said that tomorrow all customs and immigration people were going to be at the airport all day long and the following day they were going to be very busy with a tour boat. She insisted that we prepare ourselves to stay for at least two more days. Nick, not wanting to linger any longer than necessary, suggested "why not check out today". The agents grumbled and said that would be impossible considering all we still needed to do. Nick continued to press his case for leaving that evening while the Custom and Immigration people were packing their belongings for another boat waiting on the far side of the island. Reluctantly they agreed, but only if we were willing to pay for their overtime. We all agreed that they would meet me at the customs office in town at 5:00 pm to check us out. Steve, Nick and I didn't have much time now to shop for provisions, refuel the boat and check out, but that was the goal. We went ashore and divided the tasks. Nick shopped, Steve got the fuel with jerry jugs and I went to wait for the customs agent. Believe it or not, overtime only cost me an extra $10.00 and by 6:00 pm we were back on board Long Windid, lifted the anchor and on our way to Honolulu.