Arriving in Debut, Indosesia

Wildfox
Anthony Swanston
Sun 26 Jul 2015 04:14
I got my anchor down in Debut at about 1100 local time on Friday. The wind was directly behind me for the entire 650 mile passage. I also carried 1.25 knots of favourable current and so from that point of view it was a good passage. What was not good was when I met a fleet of 200 fishing boats, mostly wooden so no radar image and, needless to say, no AIS signal. It was six hours of playing dodgems in the night before I was clear of them.

I was the sixth boat to arrive and it was 36 hours before entry formalities had been completed. Quarantine give me the all clear, customs have a good poke about. Immigration needed me to fill out a standard airline type of landing card. They sent five people to complete this task. That said they obviously were all told to be light handed. Indonesia wants cruisers. Boats arrived yesterday; there are now over 40 here with 10 more to still at sea.

In theory there is internet here but in practice it does not work. It might be a month before I am somewhere I can post photographs. Tuesday sees a welcome ceremony and a free dinner...

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