There's a theme emerging in this part of the world, arrive to a monsoon for it to give way to a red hot sun. And that played out upon our arrival into Bitung.
The only difference on this occasion I suppose was the welcome party.
The next ship to arrive in Bitung is in January 2027. As such, the occasion is unusual for the local community and it shows. Bureaucracy is on fine form here. Most notable is the sheer volume of officials and uniforms. It's staggering!!!
Ordinarily, when we board a pilot around two hours before arrival, they board via pilot boat and assist the ship into port using their local knowledge. On this occasion, the party was ten strong.
Ordinarily, when we arrive, we are met by a port agent to conduct the formalities such as immigration, on this occasion, five awaited us.
Ordinarily, once alongside, we may be boarded by a few officials to go through the pre clearance routine. On this occasion, we were met my a spectrum of uniforms with all manners of duties. One official had their own umbrella carrier who was also in uniform. Some guys were rocking double denim adorned with all manner of rank insignia.
This was anything but ordinary
The best part of the day was consumed with various visitors with some form of 'official' capacity along with a few chancers. In the end we had no choice but to put a stop to it.
Favourite uniform of the day? Double denim with stitched insignia wherever there was space. Don't know what these particularly officials were but the garb looked particularly home made, unless Temu is available here?
As a result of the faffery getting ashore wasn't going to happen. There may have been an opportunity but the morning had been overwhelming and frankly based on the stories coming back from ashore about the poverty and the fascination with westerners which included posing with the local children and babies I assessed that I didn't have the energy.
So I took a watching brief. When we eventually sailed, our send off was met with music (ABBA) and some local dancing. Someone in the terminal was gunning for Indonesia Has Talent 2026. There's no question that it was one of the more unusual ports of call and the guests seemed to lap up the atmosphere. For some of us in the more public gaze however, it's fair to say we weren't sad to leave the attention behind.
As an aside, my colleague very kindly brought back a cold local beer which went down a treat.
Em spent the day at a local resort and brought me some Nasi Goreng, one of my favourite Indonesian dishes which I'll destroy at some point. So all was far from lost.
For now, we press on, navigating through the Celebes and Sulu Seas, dodging piracy, we'll pass beside the Philippines where a lot of our crew call home and steam on towards Hong Kong where we have an overnight call.
Very much looking forward to this and the plans we have!!!
Create Your Own Website With Webador