Tayandu Island

Wildfox
Anthony Swanston
Sun 2 Aug 2015 05:05
The welcome ceremony was interesting. 125 of us and 300 of them in 15 different uniforms. Everything begins one hour late. As each day goes by the officials invent new paperwork. Very frustrating. The bureaucracy is incredible. The supermarket is basic; the fruit, veg and fish markets are good but much haggling is needed. I go to an internet cafe and they fail to connect me to the internet. I ask for my money back. Not possible they say. In the end she refunds half, 5,000 Rupiahs. Or 25p in British money. The early mornings are busy for me. With so much misinformation and boats arriving with problems - fishing nets around propellers, broken engines, broken booms - everybody needs something and it has fallen to me to be controller of the radio net for this port. I am exhausted by 0930!

Individually we organise tours. Our guide is a teacher and she brings us to her school. The teachers were a uniform. A different one for each day of the week. A decent lunch where six people share 18 dishes costs nearly 5 pounds sterling. Still, without the beer it would only have been half that amount.

Eventually three more bits of paper are produced for each boat and we start to leave. The next anchorage is too small for us all at the same time so some of us go cruising to let the crowd pass through. Swerving through pearl farms and fish traps I arrive in Tayandu, a remote but inhabited island. The anchoring in very challenging. I drop the anchor in 5 metres of water and drop back into 25 metres. I hope it holds. There are seven boats here (soon to be 12) and the locals arrive and, unasked, they climb aboard. They ask for beer which they do not get. They speak no English, we no Indonesian. We agree over the radio a consistent approach; they may come along side but not aboard.

Next island, Kuru...

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