Kailana

We were the eighth boat to reach Kupang out of 43 boats. As we said, it is not a race, but na-na-nana-na! It is important to note however that we aren't the 'die hard must sail and not use engine types'. With our Indonesian & quarantine Q flags hoisted, we awaited the arrival of the customs and immigration representatives. All our mountains of paperwork were seemingly in order, but checking into Indonesia is known to be an ever evolving colourful display of bureaucracy. Some yachties get off lightly, while others find their supplies much lighter after a visit from the officials. Luckily, we were the former.
A motely crew of well dressed officials were working their way around the yachts in their customs dinghy. Well dressed, right down to their 'Sunday best' shoes (not really appropriate for being out on the water and climbing in and out of boats we would argue...), the officials eventually moved in the direction of Kailana. We quickly donned our collared Kailana T shirts to give the impression that, other than our 4 days at sea smell, we were actually just as professional as they were. Five of them clamoured aboard and it became apparent that this was a nice distraction to their normal daily routine. A round of smiley mobile phone pictures (their phones) was required with the two new arrivals (us), for the official records of course. We can only assume having all of them in the picture, one arm around us, the other with a thumbs up must surely prove that this event actually happened, i.e. officially on record? Anyway, a myriad of forms were flurried around, sign here, stamp here, etc. Not entirely sure what the forms were, but one of the young girls seemed to be on the ball. Remember we were running on fumes at this stage, what with little sleep, this was all happening in a half dreamlike, slow motion film-set kind of way. By now the other girl had decidedly stopped smiley and was looking rather uncomfortable, skin as pale as ours and a bit sweaty around the forehead.
Taken aside we were asked for our medicine list and a look at the contents. This is all in order and contains the usual and some heavies in times of broken bones, etc. Then asked, 'Do you have any weapons?', answer 'No'. Then 'Do you have any drugs', answer 'No'. Response 'OK then, that's all in order'. Very probing and strict indeed....not!
By now it was quite clear we had a bit of a situation on our hands. Our now green looking custom representative was very politely asking if should could inspect the toilet, alone, intimately, inside the toilet bowl. We knew exactly what she was doing, as she kindly left the evidence. She returned with a little more colour and not long after the customs dinghy re-appeared and they all left, soggy dress shoes and all. Apparently we got let off very lightly, presumably with only being amongst the very first boats to be boarded. The more boats that were boarded, the more confident the officials became, thus asking for chocolate, spirits, beer, wine, coca cola, sweets etc. They only got Darwin marina water in paper cups from us.
So you might then think that this was us, cleared into Indonesia, ready to roam around the streets as free as the locals, but oh no, how wrong you would be for thinking that! We were only free to go ashore to go to an office and do it all again. After much much paperwork, we worked our way through the formalities of entering Indonesia on a yacht. Thank goodness we went via the rally, as it could have taken 3 days instead of 3 hours.
We handed over to Customs/Quarantine/Immigration/Port Authority our photocopies of all our paperwork brought from Australia, along with the paperwork given to us onboard. Again, not too sure what it all meant, just sign, stamp, initial, print name, etc. On and on it went, going from desk to desk until we were set free into Indonesia for 60 days, with the option to extend for 30, with a fee attached of course.
The initial entry into Indonesia, e.g. Kupang was a little disappointing to be honest. It is the likely port to clear customs coming from Darwin direction, so you get a bit 'milked' if you catch our drift. After landing on the beach in our dinghy, we were met with a horribly dirty little beach, full of rubbish and a thug like chappie thrusting a pricelist in our faces. To keep our dinghy 'safe' we were going to have to pay the 'Dinghy bodyguards' $7 per day. We were a bit baffled why we couldn't just leave the dinghy on the beach like we have a million times before. Fuel was on par with Australia prices, and we were being charged if we wanted to use the community filtered drinking water. We soon learned that the owner of the 'pricelist' was Michael, the local Mafia big man and everyone worked for him. Us too seemingly.
Heading to the nearby bar, we found our Sail Indonesia rep, the guy that was only several days previous, standing on the podium back in Darwin telling us this and that as the key organiser of the rally. He was quite clearly pissed, slugging back on big bottles of Bintang beer, with little interest for us yachties getting ripped off on the beach. In fact this was the first time he'd seen the list and told us we'd have to ask around if we wanted any alternatives! Clearly we were really not going to get much out of this chap.
We popped ourselves down at the bar to order our first Bintang beer for the trip, thinking we're finally here, time to relax. Then the hard sell freelance tourist guides set upon us, taking no prisoners to get their sale, offering their services for large sums of their monopoly Rupiah money. We declined and drank our beer which was going down quite nicely.
Our sailing buddies slowly filtered through the 'country check in sausage factory' to join us in the bar for a full debrief on everything between Darwin and the bar they now sat in. As to be expected, this turned into the Sail Bintang Beer rally, until it was time to return the beach, release our dinghies from the grips of the Kray Twins and return to Kailana for some sleep only the dead would approve of.
Kupang is indeed not the jewel in the crown of the Indonesian archipelago. It is in fact an industrial port of little interest. Of interest Kupang was where Captain Bligh, after being chucked off the HMS Bounty in 1789, managed to sail 3,618 miles in the Bounty's launch boat from Tonga to Kupang, with only a sextant and a wrist watch for navigation. We managed to get here with merely five independent GPS systems onboard and the most up to date weather forecasting information. What's so special about him?
The following day six of us headed off to find the Kupang mall. The journey to the mall proved a lot more entertaining than the mall itself, with our own personal Bemo taxi. Like a little mini bus, but with the added advantage of an ear splitting stereo system pumping out the latest and greatest Indonesian doof-doof tunes. Our little decibel meter phone app recorded the doofs at 101 decibels, just what you need if you enjoy a good face wincing. We bopped, weaved and pushed our way through the Kupang traffic to end up at an Indonesian version of a western mall. As you can see, we are really embracing the Indonesian culture. We weren't sure how we ended up at the mall....we think that the driver decided this was the best place for us...?
There were a number of events planned for the Sail Indonesia rally in Kupang, these involving a complimentary dinner complete with traditional dancing, etc. We went to the first one, which was fun enough. A series of tables were set up, but the front tables, closest to the action, were reserved for dignitaries, politicians, etc. Us yachties, who the event was meant to be for, were shunted to the back. The event was more of a feather fluffing exercise for the local boss men, with the odd mention of the rally. The food, albeit quite tasty, put Rebecca into quarantine for a day, keeping very close to Kailana's toilet. Several other yachties come down with the same affliction commonly referred to as 'Captain Runny-Bum'.
The following next couple of days saw us doing things we needed to get done such as going to the markets, getting fuel and water. We almost got a deal on fuel, delivered to our boat, under the cover of darkness, out of the sight of Michael, but again the pricing structure was always a moving target and when the minimum quantity reached 500 litres, it was a no deal. Michael was offering fuel at $1.60 a litre, where the petrol stations were providing it at 55c a litre! A fairly healthy mark up....some might call it daylight robber. A fellow yacht, Esoterica got fuel from Michael and received 17 litres for the price of 20 in each jerrycan....so we decided to push onto the next available fuel stop. Rebecca took herself off to the markets 'Pesar Impress' with Fiona and Leslie from neighbouring yachts. She came back with tomatoes, cucumbers, ginger, garlic, bananas etc. Our Indonesian is coming along nicely and we are trying to do 10 new words a day...as it is much more fun when you can converse with the locals They also seem to get a real kick out of hearing us white people try and speak their language!
Kupang is certainly not the epicentre of the Indonesian archipelago, we know that, and our visas were ticking away, so on the Saturday morning (2nd Aug) we lifted the anchor and started heading towards Alor island, to the North East of Kupang.