With our time in Indonesia drawing to a close and looking at upcoming weather windows to Cocos Keeling, we hopped across from the Mentawai islands back to mainland Sumatra and the city of Padang, to fuel up and complete our outbound clearance from Indo. Once cleared out, we plan to make our way south through the islands to Enganno, where we’ll bang a corner and start heading west with the trade winds hopefully hitting us from slightly forward of the beam, the best we can hope for coming from this direction.

We hadn’t been looking forward to Padang, as we’d been warned that it tends to be corrupt, busy, and dirty. After 72 hours in Padang, we’ve been treated to the classic mix of good and bad that seems to define Indonesia in our experience. Brian, who is an excellent planner, had been in touch with multiple people in the area who would help us with fuel, for various surcharges, generally an additional $150 USD. While expensive, this proved absolutely worth it. Getting fuel in Indonesia is an experience. There is no fuel dock to pull up to. There are also three different grades of diesel, with DEX being the best, cleanest option. Also the hardest to find, of course. Padang is the only place along the western Sumatran coast where we could get DEX and after Brian spent days cleaning out diesel bug in our tanks a year and a half ago, you can imagine that we’re fairly sensitive about getting the best diesel we can. 

Day 1

The morning after we rolled into Padang, I took Brian ashore at 8 am to meet our diesel guy. While I stayed on the boat with the boys and worked and did school, Brian headed off into the wilds of Padang. The first two stations, despite advertising DEX, had no DEX. They proceeded to drive further and further, ending up an hour away from the harbor with still no sign of DEX. Just about the time Brian and I were discussing via WhatsApp whether we should consider going with DEXLite and hoping for the best, they finally struck gold at the sixth station. One of the attendants there knew a station that was selling DEX and gave them directions. Lucky number seven! Three hours in and they were finally filling the diesel guy’s jerry cans. By 1 pm, Brian was back on the beach waiting for my dinghy pickup. Two trips later, we had all 12 35-liter jerry cans on board ready to fuel up, plus our four 80-liters of jerry cans to stow away as reserves. 

We use a 50-micron filter to filter the fuel as it’s going into the tanks. We also have 30-micron Racor first-stage filters for both engines, with the two (10µm and 3µm) recommended Yanmar fuel filters on the engines. All of this hopefully protects the engines, but it makes fueling up with 420 liters worth of fuel in jerry cans a lengthy procedure. It took us almost three hours of moving jerry cans around and using a siphon to get the fuel through the filter and into the tanks, then get the empty jerry cans back to shore. By 4 pm, eight hours after starting, we finally had full tanks of fuel. Next up, outbound clearance! 

Day 2

The first night we were in Padang, we went ashore for dinner at a well-rated local cafe and met the owner Yangi. How very lucky for us; he turned out to be a star! We arranged to have him as our driver for the day and to take us around to the four offices we needed to visit to check out. We had to visit the offices, in the right order, getting clearance at each before moving on to the next.

First up, Immigration to have our passports stamped. After an hour-long drive, we arrived at an office staffed with seven people, no “customers” waiting, and were told that they were very busy today, and asked if we could come back tomorrow instead. Negotiation ensued, and it was finally agreed that maybe they could do it by lunch, we should go do our grocery shopping, and come back. Three hours later, loaded with groceries (and after our first stop at Wendy’s in more than a year—fries were good, everything else was a little disappointing), it was noon, and we had one clearance issued. Onto the next office: Customs. We drove 30 minutes to the office, only to be told it was under renovation. They directed us to the temporary office, back the way we’d come. We arrived to find everyone was on break until 2 pm. Sigh. We were not getting this all done in one day. Thankfully, we brought games, so chess battles ensued.

When the Customs officers returned, they seemed confused about what we needed. We were passed around from one to another, a couple of phone calls to highers up ensued, and we were told they needed to inspect the boat. We drove one hour back to the boat, only to get a call from the Customs guy, who said he actually just needed some pre-existing photos of the boat that we could have given to him on the spot. We sent the photos and he said we could come back the next morning to get the paperwork we needed. Yangi agreed to a second day of driving us around and we girded ourselves for day three. 

Day 3

With Immigration done, only “Captain Brian” was needed for the rest of the clearances, so we shipped him off for another day of touring Padang with Yangi. Time was of the essence. On Fridays in Muslim countries—at least in SE Asia—most business stops after midday prayers. If we didn’t get clearance done, we’d be here through the weekend. Back to the Customs office first, where the paperwork was picked up, and then to the Harbormaster and Quarantine offices. According to Indonesian law, there are no fees associated with check-out, although in some ports we had heard that officials will attempt to charge you anyway. No problem with Customs or Immigration, but the Harbormaster announced that there would be a fee for VTS (vessel traffic service) that we were pretty sure should have only been for commercial vessels, plus a state tax. This amounted to about $25 USD total. When Brian asked for receipts, they were given without question. He paid, then went to Quarantine. 

Technically, the paperwork from Quarantine wasn’t necessary for entry to Cocos Keeling, and we had all the clearances we needed, however, we wanted to make sure we followed Indonesian procedure. It’s hard to know who you might run afoul of in a foreign country and how they might make your life difficult. The Quarantine officer proceeded to try and shake Brian down for yet another fee. When he asked for a receipt, she got very angry, refused, and demanded he pay. Enter Yangi, who interceded. Negotiation ensued and when it became clear Brian was not going to pay without a receipt, she finally (angrily) stamped and returned the paperwork, and let him leave. Finally. We were officially checked out of Indonesia by noon, just in time to avoid spending another 72 hours in Padang! Tomorrow, we’ll begin our 800 nm trek towards Cocos Keeling. If you’re curious where we are or want to follow along, check out our tracker: www.saillogger.com/svatlas.