During my time volunteering at TRACC, I received a message from an old cruising friend, Kevin on SV Kismet. I first met Kevin during the Nada Haha sailing rally from San Diego to Fiji during my first two weeks of cruising in 2020. Since then, Eitan and I sailed off and on with Kevin around Mexico, then across the Pacific together as buddy boats, and reunited several times between French Polynesia and Fiji. Kevin had been our most consistent cruising friend and would now be arriving in Indonesia around the same time that I was left with no plans so joining for a few months just felt kismet!
I was scheduled to meet Kevin in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, known as the heart of the coral triangle and home to some of the best diving in the world. Despite its status as a world-class underwater destination, getting there was a little challenging. I flew from Kuala Lumpur to Surabaya where I had to transfer from the international terminal to the domestic terminal which took about 45 minutes by taxi. Luckily, my friend Candice had given me some spare Indonesian Rupiah which I used to pay for the fare. Left without a SIM card and no airport wifi, I was unable to determine if I was being abducted, getting scammed, or just dealing with poor airport planning but later found out there is a free airport shuttle that only takes 20 minutes.
Next, I flew Surabaya to Makassar which was a complete surprise to me because my flight itinerary showed I should be flying direct to Sorong. Once I arrived in Makassar, I was given another ticket that left me with a 5-hour overnight layover so I made myself comfortable and slept lightly in the airport. Luckily, I was woken up by the last gate call and was surprised to find my flight boarding an hour earlier than expected. This was because, without a SIM card or airport wifi, I had no idea that there was a time change and set my alarm for the wrong time.
About 24 hours after leaving Kuala Lumpur, I arrived in the capital city of Raja Ampat, Sorong. At the airport, I grabbed my bags, located an ATM, and found a stand selling SIM cards. The woman selling me the SIM card insisted it would start working between one and 24 hours after activation so I was still left without any connection to update Kevin on my whereabouts and arrival. All I had was the name of a marina on another island so I asked a taxi to take me to the location of a ferry in that direction. I was surprised that the taxi ride took us on some dirt roads but we wound up at a place with large boats.
Upon parking, I was greeted by a young man seemingly of aboriginal descent, whose lips were bright red and had a smile full of rotting teeth which I assumed was from the betelnut used as a stimulant. He said his name was Jimmy and asked if he could help me with my bags. I almost shooed him away but then remembered the poor people I encountered in Semporna and that this was likely his only source of income. I asked how much he charged to help me buy a ticket and get on the right boat with my bags. His rate was a whopping 50,000 rupiah, or about $3. So, I accepted and he led me to what appeared to be an empty building with a rickety table and some hand-painted timetables indicating the next ferry would depart in an hour. I paid 25,000 rupiah for a ferry ticket and Jimmy guided me to the boat and carried my 50-pound bag the entire time, giving me a front-row seat on the boat.
I sat on the ferry for an hour as it started to fill up and prayed that the cockroaches wandering about wouldn’t pay my luggage any mind. I couldn’t imagine a worse cruiser impression than showing up with bug-infested bags. Eventually, we departed and about halfway through the voyage, I was approached by another man, a little older than Jimmy, asking if he could also help me with my bags for 100,000 rupiah. Outrageous! But given the width of the aisle and size of my bag, I honestly wasn’t sure I could make it off of the boat by myself anyway without leaving at least one bag unattended, so I accepted. He began speaking the local language loudly in what seemed to be a joking and condescending way. The entire boat howled with laughter and I looked around, only to realize that I seemed to be the subject of his comedic routine. I looked around, hoping to catch the eyes and sympathies of other travelers but I was the only foreigner onboard.
The man helped me get my bags off the boat and walked me to a taxi who wanted another 200,000 rupiah to take me to the marina, just a 5-minute drive. The pricing structure of the ferry, versus the bag help, versus the taxi didn’t make any sense but at this point I was willing to pay anything just to get there. A few moments later I arrived at the marina and finally got enough wifi to tell Kevin that I arrived and he came up to meet me at the office.
Kevin led me down to the boat and I was greeted by his brother Sean, who helped him with the passage from Australia to Indonesia and was staying onboard for a few more weeks. Since the boat was in bachelor pad mode and a bit disorganized from passage making, Kevin gave me his bed and quarters to settle into and he would take the couch until Sean left. I couldn’t care less about the state of the boat because after taking a quick shower, I was off to sleep!
That was a challenging over land journey. I love reading about your adventures.