TELL-TALES

Vanuatu

Also called ‘The Great Cyclades’ (Bougainville in 1768), ‘The New Hebrides’ (Cook in 1774) and the Sandwich Islands (by Bligh on his epic small boat trip). This chain of islands is something of a crossroads in the SW Pacific with boats from New Zealand on the Barefoot Circuit coming across from Tonga and Fiji before curving down to New Caledonia and then back to NZ and boats en route to Australia and SE Asia leaving from here to Cairns or up to the Solomons.

The island chain has never been a homogeneous group and although basically Melanesian, different languages were spoken on different islands and even between different villages. The islands had a reputation for cannibalism and savagery right up into the 20^th century, but today the inhabitants of the different islands are a remarkably gentle and approachable people.

The recent history of the islands was a bizarre rule by both the French and the English who established different institutions to govern the islands in a complicated bipartisan way. The islands became independent in 1980 and the establishment of a common language, Bislama, a variation on Pidgin English, united the villages and islands under a common thread that soothed over old feuds and disputes. The language is quite easy to get a handle on once you hear it and I include some of my favourite phrases below.

Thank You   Tankyu tumas

To hit   Killem

To hit and kill something   Killem ded finis

To ruin   Baggerap

Piano   Wan bigfala bokis, I gat tith, sam I waet, sam I blak, taim yu killem I singalot.

Cruising strategies

Yachts on the Barefoot Circuit will often head for Vila on Efate from Fiji or Tonga. Yachts heading up from New Caledonia will often clear in at Tanna to see the live volcano there before heading on up to Vila.

Yachts must clear in first at a port of entry which are currently Lenakel on Tanna, Vila on Efate, Luganville on Espiritu Santo and Sola on Vanua Lava in the Banks Islands. If you are heading for Tanna then you can go to Port Resolution and a pick-up truck will take you over the island to Lenakel (for a fee). Outside of Vila and Luganville ensure you get receipts for all transactions to present at Vila or Luganville. Yachts must also clear out from a Port of Entry and also get permission to cruise in the different groups of islands. Clearing in and out and permits cost close to $US200 in 2009.

Despite these costs these islands are a huge cruising area and most yachts will be lucky to see a tenth of the anchorages in a cruising season. These are places that take you back in time and the heavily wooded islands and outlying reefs are just stunning. Many of the villages are isolated places where the locals welcome any cruising yachts and will want to trade for fruit and vegetables. Trading goods vary from place to place, but exercise books and pencils, T-shirts, oil, fish hooks and line, balloons (for the kids) and just about anything you have will be welcome. The villagers are not offended if you don’t have items.

Seasons and weather

It's the Tropics so it rains...OK

Weather patterns here are much as for New Caledonia except being further N temperatures are more tropical. The islands lie in the cyclone belt and are hit by cyclones so most yachts leave for the cyclone season from November to May, although the boatyard in Vila has tie-downs and is reported to be a secure place to leave a yacht in the cyclone season – check with your insurer.

Like New Caledonia you do get depressions producing westerlies in the normal cruising season and you need to plan ahead to find shelter if westerlies are forecast.

Ashore

Port Vila on Efate has by far the best shopping and yacht facilities in Vanuatu. There is laundry, wifi, supermarket and fresh fruit and veggie market, yacht repair facilities and a boatyard. There is also a fuel dock and a gas filling plant. After that Luganville is virtually the only other place where you will be able to get provisions and fuel and water. Around the islands you can always find fruit and vegetables and the locals will often row out in their outrigger canoes to trade. There are a few local shops in places, but don’t count on getting too much in these.

Facilities

Vila is the centre for yacht repairs and also has the only viable yard for hauling. In Luganville basic repairs can be made and there are a few hardware shops. Spare parts can be flown in from NZ or Australia.

Reading

Rocket Guide to Vanuatu (CD)

Yacht Miz Mae’s Guide to Vanuatu Nicola Rhind

Vanuatu Bob Tiews & Thalia Hearne South Pacific Cruising Series

TOP

A lot has been written vilifying Australian customs and quarantine officials. Well they have been to charm school and my experience of customs and quarantine in Cairns and lots of other peoples’ experiences in other Australian ports of entry is that they are affable and helpful with the whole process of clearing in.

They are still thorough. You need to have given 96 hours advance warning, preferably by email to email to

Doing the paperwork in Napa's garden in Kupang

Before anyone gets to Indonesia the worries begin. Wherever two or three cruisers are gathered together there will anxious conversations about the latest rumours on the formalities involved for cruising Indonesia. In NZ, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Australia worried cruisers mutter amongst themselves and quiz any newly arrived yachts on the ‘Indonesia question’. ‘Who are using to get a CAIT?’ ‘What about this bond which I’ve heard can be XX% (insert any number here) of the boats value?’ ‘Social visa or not to social visa?’ The cruiser rumours rattling around the anchorages and over the ether and around internet forums are enough to make you miss Indonesia altogether. Which would be a pity.

Indonesia is a huge diverse country made up of hundreds of islands. Thousands if you count the smaller ones (some estimates run to 17,000 islands but that is counting some very small ones). The combination of the ethnic and cultural diversity through the islands into the Republic of Indonesia means that there is a lot of local variation between the major islands and the law-makers in Jakarta. The rules for yachts are that you need a CAIT before you enter Indonesia and a social visa if you are staying longer than 30 days but less than 60 days. To get a social visa you need a special sponsor letter.

All good and straightforward you might think. The problems in the past have arisen from a local interpretation of the rules that Jakarta makes by the officials (principally customs) in the other islands. This, shall we say, flexible interpretation has led to the ‘bond’ question, though in some ways that is a bit of a red herring that has been amplified out of all proportion by cruiser rumour and a bit of bad faith by cruisers who have cruised Indonesia in years past. Most of the rumours about the ‘bond’ question have come from Kupang where the whole problem has been magically solved with a contribution to the ‘retirement fund’ for customs officers. More on that later.

Its important to know that, to my knowledge, not one yacht has had to pay the temporary import bond (variously calculated at 20/30/40/50% of the boats value) which is then repaid when you leave Indonesia. This bond is ONLY payable after a yacht has been continuously in Indonesia for one year.

To get a CAIT realistically you need an agent. We used Rachel who actually uses Lytha in Jakarta to get the CAIT. When Rachel and her family were not off cruising she answered any enquiries promptly although in fact you can find most answers to your questions on her website:

In Rachel’s absence Lytha answered questions and replied quickly and comprehensively. There are other agents as well and you can pretty quickly find them with a quick search on the internet. Rachel’s blogspot has probably the best information on Indonesian regulations and the ins and outs of cruising the archipelago and should be your first stop when researching what is going on in Indonesia.

Getting a CAIT

The procedure for getting a CAIT goes something like this…

• You need to apply at least a month and preferably two months before you plan to sail into Indonesian waters.
• You need to pick up the original CAIT somewhere it can be posted or couriered to. Most agents will email you a digital scan of the CAIT, but you still need the original. Darwin is by far the best option. The staff in the Indonesian Consulate here are used to holding a CAIT for yachts until you arrive and you can also get a social visa here with your sponsor letter which will arrive with the CAIT. There have been problems getting the CAIT sent to your arrival port in Indonesia with some messy consequences. You could also get the CAIT sent to somewhere like Cairns, Thursday Island or Gove.
• The details you need to put on your CAIT will be provided by your agent. Rachel or Lytha will tell you what they need for the CAIT. Most of the info is to do with crew, passport numbers, boat details including registration number and port, insurance, dimensions and tonnage etc. and all the islands/ports you intend to visit in Indonesia. It’s best to put as many islands and ports as possible. It doesn’t matter if you don’t visit them all, but it can matter if you visit a port not listed on your CAIT.
• You then send all these details off to your agent along with the CAIT fee and the agents fee including any costs for postage or a courier. In total it cost us $US280 plus $US20 to post the CAIT and sponsorship letter to Darwin (2009). For some reason Western Union seems a favoured way of sending money.
• You collect the CAIT at whatever address you have had it posted to or at the port of entry in Indonesia if you have decided to go down that route. The CAIT is valid for 90 days from the DATE OF ISSUE. The social visa is valid for 60 days from your first port of entry in Indonesia. The social visa cost $US60 per person in Darwin (2009). You can obtain a normal tourist visa on arrival in Indonesia valid for 30 days. This normally costs $US25 though that depends on where you get it.

Clearing into Indonesia

There are three ports of entry that are popular with cruising yachts. There are more, but these three are the ones commonly used when on passage from Australia and Papua New Guinea/Lousiades to Indonesia.

AMBON

The Sail Indonesia Rally (formerly the Darwin to Ambon Rally) goes direct from Darwin to Ambon. This is a passage of nearly 600 miles. The rally organisers process all the paperwork for the CAIT and social visa as part of the fee for the rally ($Au500 in 2009). The rally leaves Darwin around mid-July so you need to get a wiggle on to get there in time if you are coming from NZ or the more easterly islands in the South Pacific.

In 2009 there were 130 odd boats in the rally so not surprisingly clearing into Ambon took around three days for the over-pressed officials in Ambon. As the rally progresses there are similar traffic jams at any other ports where large numbers of rally boats arrive at the same time. For those who like cruising in company and want to take any hassle out of getting a CAIT then this is the way to go.

You don’t have to be on the rally to clear into Indonesia in Ambon and to date this has been relatively hassle free for individual cruising boats at a cost of around $US5.

BALI

From Darwin to Bali is around 950 miles. Yachts will often break the passage with a stop at Ashmore Reef. Yachts go to Benoa, either to Bali Marina or to the moorings off the Royal Bali YC. Here you can get cleared in for around $US50 or do it yourself. Half a dozen yachts I know of have cleared themselves in at Denpassar with no hassle, no mention of the bond, for a total cost of around $US5. Despite reports of the ‘bond’ issue here, in 2009 no yachts I know of had a problem here. There has been some muttering about bad faith and conspiracy theories by websites that have lumped Bali in with Kupang as a port of entry where 'the bond' issue is raised. To date it has NOT.

KUPANG

From Darwin to Kupang is around 460 miles. This used to be the popular route until there were ‘problems’ with the local officials for clearing in here. Yachts still use Kupang as we did although you must be prepared to pay the local ‘tax’ to customs. This is facilitated through Napa at Kupang Yacht Service, the most used agent here, and basically you hand your papers and passports over to him, pay $US250, the ‘tax’ for customs, and get your paperwork back some time later.

Kupang Yacht Service Napa Rachman kupangyacht_service@yahoo.com When you are off Kupang town just call him on VHF Ch 16.

If you don’t want to pay the tax then be prepared for customs to start quizzing you about the value of your boat and requesting some fairly large percentage of that value to be lodged with a bank as the ‘temporary importation bond’. I will reiterate here that no boats I know of have paid the bond and all choose, for pretty obvious reasons, to cough up the $US250. Some boats have spent days trying to do it themselves, arguing about the bond, and eventually going to Napa and coughing up the $US250.

There have been a number of yachts on the way to Bali and running low on fuel that have stopped at Kupang to get fuel. This entails a small ‘fee’, usually around $US50, and the yachts have then continued on to Bali where they have cleared in, probably without mentioning the unscheduled stop at Kupang.

NOTE

This can all change in subsequent years, but I do counsel caution on advice and paranoia that has spread like wildfire around various internet sites. I talked to Aussie Dean in Nongsa Point who has been cruising these waters from Darwin for some 20 years. 'Its always been like this', he said, '...in some places you need to pay out a little local tax, some years you don't, but hey, none of us should be too precious about cruising around in what to the locals are luxury items'.

So relax a little. And maybe you need to cough up a bit, maybe you don't. It's a great country, lovely people, for most of us a once in a lifetime experience. Don't sour it with your own mean minded boat economics.

After the Port of Entry

Most yachts will not have to show anyone the CAIT if they do not go to any other large ports with harbour officials. We didn’t show anyone the CAIT until we went into Nongsa Point Marina to clear out of Indonesia for Singapore. Other yachts that have been in larger ports have had to go to the harbourmaster and do some paperwork. In a few cases and a few places here have been requests for ‘fees’ of one sort or another (i.e. ‘retirement funds’), but most of these have been resisted.

None of the above should be read as some sort of judgmental tirade against cruising in Indonesia. It is not intended to be. Local corruption is a fact that all Indonesians have to live with and the actions of corrupt officials affects all in Indonesia. And they have to live there all the time while we are just passing through. Witness the following extract from the Straits Times on the devastating earthquake in Padang in Sumatra…

The government has pledged six trillion rupiah (S$892.4 million) for reconstruction efforts, but many fear the money too will be lost to corruption as it flows through the local government… "It gets thinner and thinner and then just the mouse’s tail comes out the bottom. That’s Indonesia," said housewife …who lives on the outskirts of Padang.

This is an amazing country to cruise peopled by softly spoken and generous individuals (with only a few exceptions including customs officials). The paperwork may be a bit of a hassle, (though it is really not that bad), but that should not deter you from cruising this huge archipelago of amazing islands.