Sailing Bali To Surabaya (Java)

We arrived back in Bali from Kuala Lumpur. A visa-on-arrival gave us another month in Indonesia before renewing it again. It was finally time to leave Bali. We prepared Thorfinn and shopped for supplies before heading to Kuta to say goodbye to some friends. After playing a few games of pool with Nick at the Rooster Bar, we bid him farewell and popped over the street to say goodbye to Agung and Ari, our extraordinary massage ladies. We love Bali and enjoyed our time there, but we were well and truly ready to continue our journey.

We left Serangan and motor-sailed to a tiny rock island off Candi Dasa. We donned our snorkel gear and got in the water to clean the bottom of the boat. (The growth of barnacles and weed from spending three weeks moored in Serangan was unbelievable!) We cleaned the propeller, rudder, and part of the hull before the current became too fast, and we had to give it up. That night the anchorage was rolly. After very little sleep, we got up in the morning to finish cleaning the hull. We were on our way again by 0900, ready for an overnight sail.

Pulau Giligenteng

We motor-sailed throughout the night with thunderstorms on the horizon. We changed course slightly and missed the worst of it. Once we arrived at Pulau Giligenteng, we put our SUPs (stand-up paddle boards) in the water and went to explore. On the way back to Thorinn, we were visited by local fishermen. We bought four octopuses and made pickled octopus.

Pulau Kambing

A couple of days later, we moved to Pulau Kambing (Goat Island) and anchored there for the night. It was a Friday night, and the Islamic Islamic’ call to prayer’ went on for about five hours. I usually find it very relaxing when we are at anchor listening to it. However, it sounded as if at least three or four mosques on the small island were having a “battle of the call”. It was extremely noisy!

After dinner, a storm was brewing, and the wind had changed direction, so we decided to move to the other side of the island. It was pitch-black, and the water around this island was littered with buoys and boats. Therefore I had to make like a figurehead and hang off the front of Thorfinn, looking for anything that would obstruct our voyage. The lightning was all around us, and I am not ashamed to say I was terrified! Not one of my better experiences.

Surabaya

The next day we went to Surabaya. The Suramadu Bridge, which we passed under, is rather impressive, as is the copious amount of Naval ships in the port.

This port is one of the busiest in Indonesia. We couldn’t find anywhere to anchor near Surabaya, so we crossed to Madura and anchored near the ferry terminal. We had a visit from someone selling diesel, so we filled our jerry cans and then went to shore to look around. No one speaks much English apart from “my name is’,’ which is how they ask what your name is. I know quite a lot of Indonesian Bahasa now. We enjoyed a few stilted conversations before we asked where to find a warung. We followed the pointing fingers to a tiny warung with delicious bebek goreng (fried duck).

We were in Surabaya to extend our Visas, but we arrived late Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, the office is not open; therefore, we could do nothing about it until Monday. Sunday, we caught the ferry to Surabaya for a look around.

We met a man, Arni, and his daughter. We took them for a coffee, and he offered to show us around, but we preferred to just explore the place ourselves.

Surabaya is one of Indonesia’s major shopping destinations and has many opulent shopping malls. We went to Grand City and had a look around the shops and let our “inner child” have a play at an amusement parlour! Later we went on to Tunjungan Plaza for a look around and treated ourselves to a movie. The movie cost Rp35000 (about AUS $3.50). So cheap, and they don’t blank out the swear words in Indonesia like they do in Malaysia!

The labyrinthine roads of Surabaya, congested with cars, scooters, trucks, vans, becaks (rickshaws), and people pushing hand-carts, wound their way through a myriad of incongruous buildings. Large fancy homes pop up between ramshackle huts, and the slum areas along the train lines sit not far from fancy sky-rise buildings and shopping malls. 

The roads in this city (the second largest in Indonesia) are so perplexing that even Dwayne couldn’t work out where we were most of the time. Public transport such as trains and buses was not easy to find. They have bemos (minivans), but no one speaks English, so we caught taxis daily. Luckily the taxis are very cheap.

Monday morning, we started the arduous saga of extending our visas. We looked up the address for Kantor Immigrasi (the office of Immigration), caught a ferry to Surabaya and then a taxi a long way out of town (out near the airport) to the Immigration Office. Once there, we waited an hour before being directed to a desk. They told us we needed to go to a different office.

A couple of minutes later we were walking in the rain trying to catch another taxi. Wet and a bit disappointed, we grabbed a cab to another immigration office, where we were once again told we were at the wrong place. They gave us the correct location’s address, and we again set off to find a taxi. After a few hours of sitting, filling in forms (buying ““black pens”” and getting our passports photocopied), we were on our way back home.

We were due back at Immigration two days later when we thought we’d be picking up our passports with the extended visa. We arrived at 0800, and after several hours of waiting, paying and having photos and fingerprints done (biometrics), we were again on our way…. without our passports. We were due back at Immigration at 1500 the next day to pick them up. Feeling a little despondent, we caught a taxi to Tunjungan Plaza, had lunch and watched a couple of movies.

The next day before picking up our visas, we went to the Submarine Monument for a look inside a sub. Dwayne was interested in looking at the sub as he had just finished reading “The Terrible Hours”. The Terrible Hours, is a true story by Peter Maas about a submarine that went down in 1939 with 33 men on board and the miraculous rescue that followed (in an era when there were no actual methods of deep-sea rescue).

The submarine is the KRI Pasopati. It is a Russian submarine built in 1952 and has been with the Indonesian Navy since the 29th of January 1962. In 1990 it was retired and was open for the public on the 15th of July 1998. The sub has seven rooms, and we got to look at them all. It was well worth the small fee for a look around. In the afternoon, we picked up our passports, did a little shopping and headed back to Thorfinn to get her ready for our next voyage.

Food

In Surabaya, we found a tiny back alley warung where we ordered Kare Kambing (goat curry); it was delicious. The goat skin in it was a little off-putting for me, but the texture and taste were fine. It was tasty and tender.

 As we walked around a small part of Madura, we had some very yummy sate ayam (chicken sate). While we ate, we had many visitors come up for a chat. They all called the sate ““Madura Sate”” as though it was their specialty (I think this lady’s sate is very popular). They were very interested in how we enjoyed them. We told them they were enak sekali (very delicious).