Clearing out of Kupang- in only 5 and a half hours!

Across the Archepeligo- not d.u.i , just "windblown and interesting"

If you have followed much of this to date, I have on the odd occasion made reference to checking in and out of various countries. Each country naturally is different to the last, but all generally require the same paperwork, passports , crew list, registration papers for K'Gari, some have needed to see the radio certificate,and Vietnam particularly wanted to see some marine qualifications. The only other country that has shown the slightest interest in actual qualifications was Singapore, and I suspect that was due to our spectacularly un-announced, agent-less  arrival, which was a no no, as we found out.

So only two clearances  to go. Clear out of Indonesia and clear into Australia.

The order in which you accrue your various stamps (chops) and collect your clearance papers varies from country to country and even within countries, especially Indonesia. I had read all the information I could find, but most of the information about Kupang related to arriving not departing. None the less having ascertained from some wonderfully informative posts on Noonsite that Immigration was near the airport and everything else was down at the port , and that we were in fact anchored pretty well equidistant between the two, the only thing to do was, through Ayub, engage William his friendly driver, to drive us around Kupang. Peter organised this at the end of the second fuel run the previous day.

The following morning at the appointed time we went ashore to meet William, and there with him was Ayub!  You may remember we had declined his offer to act as our agent  when we arrived and it had never been discussed again. We all piled into the car and off we headed.

Now at this point I realised that in all honesty had we been doing this without Ayub , we would immediately have gone to the departments in the wrong order. My logic, in light of nothing to the contrary, was that  the order we should visit the departments was that  Imigresen should be the last , as we shouldn't be free ranging around the town once our passports had been processed making us "departed" persons. Completely wrong! Further more all the information on yacht sites, for all over SE Asia,says take multiple copies of everything with you.I had long ago given this up as a pointless waste of paper and ink as nobody in two and half years had wanted more than an initial single copy. Wrong again! So that entailed a quick stop at a photocopy establishment, conveniently around the corner from Imigresen,  four sets of  copies of all the relevant papers were obtained and into Imigresen we went.

Arrival and departure- correctly stamped.

As we were about to go inside, it was suggested to us, that some cigarettes might ease our way through the queue- hmmmm! I gave up smoking years ago and Peter never has- Oh, not for us!- for someone in Imigresen! Well this was the first time that anything like this had been suggested, although I had certainly read about it enough times.OK, when in Rome as they say ,so 50000IDR ($5aud) was going to do the trick apparently.
Still not sure where exactly the queue was that we would be easing our way through, the building appeared remarkably deserted to be honest, but we were efficiently processed by a very pleasant officer and passports duly stamped.

Health Clearance

That achieved it was back to the car and a 25 minute sojourn across town to the port area. Here we visited in order, Quarantine, who were asking for a "green book" , which we had never been issued with on our arrival- never mind, they would supply one now. Minutes passed as the cupboard was searched , a book produced and then I have no idea if it was ever filled out , because it was never given to us when we left. They did want a copy of the original  MDH (Maritime Declaration of Health), which hadn't been returned when we  checked in at Nongsa, and I didn't have a copy  with me. It susequently appeared not to be an issue, I just filled out another one on the spot.
We departed with our health clearance, and another 50000IRP 'donation', which was perhaps for the green book, or the refilled out MDH, who can tell?

Next it was off to Customs- delightful and helpful officers.
Customs apparently need to come on board the  departing vessel before they can complete their paperwork, so it was back to the boat and we transported Samuel,the officer  (with his trousers rolled up and his bare feet) out to the boat in the dinghy.
Minor hitch back at the beach, with the now waiting customs officer, was that our dinghy had been efficiently moored offshore by Ayub's man, to preclude it being bashed about on the diminishing beach as the tide rose. Excellent plan. Alas, we had returned too early and there was no sight of the chap who was obviously going to swim out to retrieve it. In fact , his wife explained , he had "gone to the market, back later". So fully clad in my "suitable attire for visiting officials in a Muslim country"- long pants and long sleeve top, it was time for a swim to retrieve the dinghy, so we could in fact, transport the waiting officer to K'Gari to proceed with the clearance. Quick change of clothing for me once we were back on board and he filled out his paperwork and gave me a YELLOW copy which I thought was a receipt. We then took him ashore and it was back to the customs office, (this is a good 10 mins drive from the popular mooring off  Teddi's Beach). We gave him a 15 minute head start. Arriving back at the customs office, we then were given the appropriate documentation and it was off to the Harbour Master for the final all important Port Clearance.

The all important Port Clearance- don't leave town without it!

This took about 20minutes to obtain, and it would have apparently  been helpful if I had had the yellow copy  of the paper that Customs had given me, which I had filed already on board. However we left with the port clearance that we required.

The four sets of copies of everything were thus consumed, by all 4 departments. It is just a very long and  geographically spread out performance. We managed it in only 5.5 hours, which  is apparently  quite fast!