Part 15

All the next day we cruised westward, with the land growing more distinct. By late afternoon we were sailing just off the southern shore, but it was obvious that we could not reach Kupang that night. The coasts of islands in the Indonesian archipelago are not marked with coastal beacons as was the case along even the most deserted stretches of the Australian shores and I had no desire to feel my way along a dark and unknown coast by night and then grope through an unlighted channel on the way to Kupang. Telok Bay, Sakala, seemed to offer a protected anchorage, so we dropped the hook there in eight fathoms, half a mile offshore. It was a restless night, with considerable swell, so I insisted on keeping anchor watch once more.

This time Barbara, who had been sharing the extra daytime hour at the tiller with Jessica whenever we set the clocks back, volunteered to take an hour of night duty. Later, she confessed that the experience had given her a new respect for the job of the man on watch!

Every time we pitched, the anchor chain jerked, making the most frightful noise—as if it were going to break or rip out of its fastenings at any moment. I kept studying the points of land on each side of the bay, trying to decide whether or not we’d shifted position, which would mean the anchor was dragging and I ought to call Skipper. What a burden of responsibility! There’s nothing like darkness—and being on duty all alone—to magnify one’s fear!

At 0500 the next morning, we got underway and continued along the coast. This was supposed to be the “dry season,” but the visibility was consistently poor and at times rain blotted out the land. Several times we passed sails—Indonesian praus—the first signs of humanity we had seen since leaving Carpentaria Light Boat behind.

We flew our colors and the Indonesian flag, which Jessica had made during the trip, straightened up the deck, readied the anchor, and put on clean shirts. After we had dropped anchor in the harbor of Kupang, I even celebrated by going below for a quick—and necessary—shave.

Two immigration officers in neatly pressed tans were the first to board us. Both were very young and slight in build, looking like neat, precocious, and well-scrubbed schoolboys. Once again, the dire predictions of “informed sources” failed to materialize, for no one threw our passports on the floor. Instead, they examined them carefully and then handed them back with a smile. One of them, indeed, wished us “Well come!” in two understandable English words.

We spent an enjoyable hour while Barbara served coffee and opened a tin of Australian “sweet biscuits” and I filled out the necessary forms—which were printed in both Indonesian and English.

That, the officials then indicated, was all. There were no further requirements. We were quite free to go ashore.

Thank you very much, we said. And where could we get our American money changed?

Communications took a bit of time, because our pronunciation of English words was obviously unintelligible, but we were all patient and determined—and we were able to invoke the additional assistance of _Teach Yourself Dutch_ and _Teach Yourself Malay_ which I had prudently bought back in Sydney.

American—money—changed? The officials looked at each other. They consulted. They examined a proffered $10 bill with great interest.

“May be Jakarta!” they suggested helpfully. (Jakarta, the capital of the far-flung republic was a thousand miles to the west.)

“No—_before_ Jakarta. We want to buy food—here!”

“No. Here impossible,” they insisted, although with regret. They climbed into their launch—an open dory with American outboard—and chugged off.

Armed with our language books, we set off for shore in Flatty—Barbara, Ted, Jessica, and I. We had anchored out farther than we had realized and found it a long haul to the beach past dozens of large sailing praus and a few motorized fishing boats. People seemed to be living on all of them. We could see them gathered around open fires on the raised poop decks, cooking, eating, hanging out clothes. They watched us curiously and when we waved they shouted back a friendly greeting.

It was already dusk, but the beach was a ferment of activity. A Dutch freighter had arrived, lighters were plying back and forth, and hundreds of Timorese were wading out beyond the shallow water to unload the boats and carry boxes, barrels, and bales up to the customs shed. Drums of oil were simply dumped overboard and floated to shore, where they were rolled up the sloping beach by a number of wiry men. The scene was one of frenetic bustling, a startling contrast to the deserted quiet of the evening waterfront in New Zealand or Australia, where the eight-hour day is King.

As we neared the shore, a crowd surrounded us and willing hands helped to pull us in. No sooner had we stepped out of the dinghy than a dozen men seized it and rushed it up far beyond the high-water mark. No one spoke a word of English, so we could only assume that Flatty was in the hands of friends and would be well cared for until our return.

Out of the darkness a roly-poly Indonesian approached. “Dr. Reynolds?” he asked, in carefully enunciated syllables. He handed me his card: Mr. Ndonoe, Customs Office. He wanted to go out to the boat.

“Tomorrow morning all right?”

“No, please. Now.”

A word from Mr. Ndonoe and the dinghy was rushed back down the beach and refloated. We climbed in. Mr. Ndonoe, as I mentioned, was hefty and there seemed no point in overloading the boat, so I suggested that Ted, Barbara, and Jessica remain ashore until our return. We gained nothing by this maneuver, however, as their places were promptly taken by three young Timorese, two of whom seized an oar apiece and began to row mightily in opposite directions, while the third shouted orders. Finally we got partially squared away and began an erratic course out across the harbor. Looking shoreward I could see that the rest of my family were being herded up the beach under escort—evidently someone had been delegated to look after them. I could only hope that Mr. Ndonoe’s business would not keep them waiting too long.

When we finally reached the _Phoenix_ it developed that Mr. Ndonoe’s visit was by no means an official one. His curiosity stimulated by the reports of the two young immigration officers, he simply wanted to see for himself the small refrigerator that made ice by means of a kerosene flame! And, having shown him the ice, which had hardly begun to solidify around the edges, since we had used it for our earlier guests, I had to mix him a drink to prove the usefulness of the six small cubes.

By the time we got back to shore Barbara and the youngsters, who had been shown to Mr. Ndonoe’s office in the customs shed, had practically memorized the customs forms, written in Indonesian, which was all they had found to entertain themselves. They had almost convinced themselves that our amateur oarsmen had sunk us in the bay and were so relieved to see us that nobody minded that it was too late to shop for the bread and fresh vegetables we had hoped to take back for supper.

I was able to assure them that Nick, Mickey, and Moto were not waiting for any problematical fresh produce but had already started philosophically to cook rice and open cans.

“Then why can’t we go to a restaurant?” A longing for someone else’s cooking—anything, in fact, that they themselves hadn’t prepared—seemed to be an occupational disease with the women.

“I doubt if there’s a restaurant here—and anyway we haven’t any money, remember?”

Mr. Ndonoe confirmed my doubt. Yes, there was no restaurant and there was no place to get our American money changed.

“There is American family, though,” he volunteered.

“_Where?_”

A guide was sent to lead us through dark, narrow, teeming streets to the large and rambling house (a Japanese hospital during the war), where the Kingsleys, Mennonite agricultural consultants, were living with their seven children and a couple of missionaries from Australia. They took us in at once and, when they learned we had not eaten, placed us around their kitchen table and filled us with home-baked bread, butter and jam, hot chocolate, and bananas—green in color and about the size of a hot dog, but ripe and very good.

While we were still eating, another official dropped by. He spoke no English, but told us—through our hosts—that our Japanese men would _not_, after all, be allowed ashore. Also, in spite of our earlier understanding that we had satisfied all requirements, it now developed that Mr. Ndonoe wished to see all of our ship’s papers in the morning; the “polisi” wished me to report to them first thing; and it would also be necessary to pay calls on the harbormaster and the port doctor. The next day, it appeared, would be a busy one.

In the morning, with the Australian, Mr. Dicker, to translate, I went to plead with the headman. He was polite but adamant. He had no intention of permitting any Japanese to set foot in Kupang. He gave no reason, but I assumed it was a personal matter. Perhaps he had unpleasant memories of the Japanese occupation. He acknowledged that all our visas were in order, but managed to bring out the fact that it is a long way from Jakarta, where such permission is given, to Kupang, where _he_ was in charge. A long way, both in miles and in authority.

I sent off a cable of protest to both the American and the Japanese Embassy, but the Kingsleys warned me that even a cable exchange between the islands would take at least three days at best. This effectually killed any desire we had to linger in Timor, for we felt keenly how infuriating it would be to have to stay aboard, in full view of such a colorful port. Moreover, I had a strong hunch that no matter what cabled instructions were received, there would be no change in local policy.

I decided to accept Mr. Kingsley’s offer to cash one of our stateside checks for Indonesian rupiah so that we could lay in a few fresh provisions and push on at once for Bali, where we hoped our cabled protests would assure us of a friendlier reception.

Mrs. Kingsley sent her cook to help Barbara and Jessica shop. Ted and I made the rounds of the port authorities to announce our change of plans and clear for sea again. The cook was tiny—not just short, like Japanese women, but small and fragile looking. She wore a white blouse and a figured sarong and, like most women in Timor, even the poorest, she wore dangling gold earrings through her pierced ears. She spoke almost no English, but with the help of an Indonesian phrase book borrowed from the Kingsleys, Barbara managed to do very well.

Off they went, along the street that curves beside the harbor, past the bombed-out shells of what had once been substantial brick buildings, to the market—a miscellaneous collection of mats beneath a single thatched roof. The stallkeepers squatted cross-legged on the ground or, if they boasted counters, on the counters behind their wares. In neat piles arranged upon banana leaves were chunks of meat, hands of tiny green bananas, fish, eggs, Chinese cabbage, bean sprouts, and bright red chili peppers. Barbara’s guide seemed to know the going price of everything without asking. Eggs—all tiny and without any guarantee of freshness—were six rupiah for eight—one rupiah being worth about nine American cents on the official exchange. Potatoes, sold in heaps of ten or twelve, cost one rupiah per pile, the catch being that each potato is, literally, the size of a marble! Tomatoes were the same size and about as costly. Bananas, however, were cheap—only five rupiah for a good-sized stalk—and oranges were one rupiah for four.

The final purchase, and one for which the phrase book had to be called into play and a special expedition made, was bread. The bakery, at a considerable distance from the market, had a complete stock of ten loaves of bread, each loaf consisting of a length of five to eight bun-sized segments which sold for a half rupiah apiece. The very idea of any one customer buying the lot was staggering, but once Barbara had managed to persuade the cook—and the cook had reassured the baker—he became very businesslike. He wrapped each loaf separately in a fresh green banana leaf and laid it on the counter, where it promptly unwrapped itself while he worked on the next one. The individual segments began to come apart as he worked, but the baker, nothing daunted, produced more leaves and showed a willingness to wrap each bun if necessary. The market basket was already overflowing and the cook’s arms were full, so Barbara scooped up the whole lot, leaves, buns, and all, and made her way back to the beach where we were waiting by the dinghy.

Ted and I, for our part, had been enjoying another aspect of Kupang. Our official business disposed of, we had wandered up and down the streets of the city trying to register everything in a short time so that we could share it with the others on board. For the first time since leaving Japan we had the impression in Kupang of teeming life, of countless people, of bustle, color, movement—and above all poverty, grinding poverty. Many people were clothed in nothing but patches, one upon another. Faces were gaunt, arms and legs were nothing but sinewy muscle laid upon bone. Most noticeable of all were the toothless, gaping maws of the betel chewers, men and women alike, their mouths stained red and drooling fungus-like shreds as they chewed. It was a sight, we felt, that would take a bit of getting used to.

There was wide variety in the costumes of Timor. The most common form of dress seemed to be a tubular length of bright cloth which served equally as a skirt, a shawl, or a complete costume à la Gandhi. Fierce-looking banditti from the hills strolled around with bright scarf turbans on their heads and sheathed knives stuck in their sashes; Muslim in black-velvet fez worked side by side with nearly naked Malays whose headgear dress was an amazing replica in woven pandanus of the fifteenth-century flat-crowned velvet hats worn by the early Portuguese explorers.

This latter style, in fact, had for centuries been the traditional headgear of the Timorese but when Ted, who has few wants, demanded excitedly to know where he could buy such a hat, Mr. Kingsley assured him that none were ever offered for sale. Any man who needed a new hat would design and create his own and there is no tourist trade in Kupang to create a demand for mass merchandising.

Nothing daunted, Ted borrowed a phrase book, memorized a few words, touched me for a handful of rupiah, and began to scan every hat that passed with a critical and speculative eye. In the end he succeeded in buying an almost new hat right off the head of its surprised—and delighted—wearer.

A few more enterprising visitors like Ted, and mass production of Timorese hats will revolutionize the economy of Kupang!

At the waterfront there was plenty to see while we waited. The freighter was loading with passengers for its return trip to Jakarta and the beach was turbulent. Bedrolls, bundles of goods wrapped in matting, fighting cocks in bamboo cages, and eating chickens tied by their feet into bundles were all being carried down to the shore and loaded onto the backs of porters, who waded out with them into deeper water where the lighters were waiting, followed by the passengers themselves. Just beyond the shallows, the boats would stand by while the oarsmen held them steady and passengers scrambled over the gunwales and helped to load the cargo aboard. At last, with only inches of freeboard, the lighter would move off ponderously in the direction of the freighter.

When the family finally assembled at the waterfront, I loaded our purchases and the girls into the dinghy and then shook hands with everybody, including Mr. Ndonoe, who had come down to see us off. Mr. Ndonoe, however, simply kept hold of my hand and used it to steady himself as he climbed into the dinghy and settled himself comfortably. I tried to explain that we were ready to sail as soon as we got to the _Phoenix_, but he indicated that he would go along. Mr. Dicker had the impression that the visit was official, so there was nothing to do but make the best of it.

Once on board, however, it appeared that Mr. Ndonoe had come with us for the same reason a pup jumps onto the seat of a car—because he enjoys the ride. I’m afraid we were a bit abrupt as we packed him into Flatty again, since Moto had to row him all the way to shore and return before we could load our dinghy aboard and get underway.

Boatwise, it is a pleasure to leave Kupang: just up anchor, drift slowly seaward as you make sail at your leisure, and you are on your way. No tricky channels, no coral, no adverse tides, no shifting winds, no held breath.

Much as we had looked forward to a leisurely trip up the Indonesian archipelago, we decided to make no more stops until Bali, where we felt more certain of our welcome. We had no desire to cause incidents, and were afraid that the feeling against the Japanese which had been evidenced in such a relatively large port as Kupang might cause even more trouble in remote spots, even farther removed from central control.

Accordingly, we set our course for Benoa, the port of entry to Bali, 500 miles to the west. On this hop there was much leisure for reading and relaxation. Books were always a special joy at sea, partly because we had time to think about what we read and partly because, in the hours when we gathered in the cockpit, we found pleasure in sharing what we had been reading through discussion or by reading bits aloud. Life at sea was teaching us the joys of conversation, of propounding a theory, of following an idea to its logical conclusion. We all increased our knowledge painlessly and almost unconsciously as we compared impressions of the people and places we had left behind or tried to learn a bit about the ports that lay ahead.

In route to Bali we talked, among other things, about our brief experience in Timor, about Mr. Ndonoe and his almost childlike eagerness, about the unreasonably prejudiced and stubborn senior immigration officer; about the very young immigration officials; and about the Italian port doctor who had come out for a two-year term “because not enough doctor for all the place they need.”

For the first time, as we read something of the history of this very new republic, we realized what terrible obstacles Indonesia was facing in her struggle to achieve a place in the community of nations. She had no background of gradual education and preparation for self-rule, as had the Philippines. Having thrown off a very paternalistic colonial rule by sudden revolution, she found herself without enough experienced leaders, professional men, and trained government officials. No wonder so many of the officers we met had seemed young. They were! And as for the older ones, like our senior official in Kupang, he had perhaps worked in a minor capacity under the Dutch and, on the basis of such slight experience, had been quickly kicked upstairs. Perhaps his overbearing and dogmatic attitude was simply a reflection of the treatment he himself had received or observed under the hated colonial rulers whom he had replaced.

Our periods of companionship in the cockpit were never scheduled and sometimes burgeoned at an hour that would have been unthinkable ashore. For example, from Barbara’s diary:

July 13. Woke up about 3 A.M. and realized by the wallowing of the ship, the slatting of sails, and the banging of blocks that the wind had left us. Went up to sit with Ted on watch. The wind was beginning to tease us, coming in little puffs and then falling off—but each time returning a little more strongly, until gradually we began to move and the water aft began to gurgle a bit. The phosphorescence of our wake was spectacular—we could trace the curve of the rudder deep down and bubbles of light like sparkling champagne were kicked up behind.

At four, when Earle came on watch, Jessica heard us talking and she, too, came up and joined us, just in time for a thrilling display of phosphorescent dolphins! They gamboled and disported about us in luminous streaks and splashes. We could follow them beneath the surface, a moving river of cold, greenish light, until they broke the surface in a shower of spangles accompanied by the characteristic “whoof” of expelled air.

Our entrance into Bali was one of the most trying and difficult that we had yet experienced. The currents that sweep down between the islands are fierce in these areas and the monsoon wind pours down through the passes. The year previous, a yacht larger than the _Phoenix_ had been blown down the strait while attempting to reach Bali and it had taken her a month to work her way back against the winds. We had no desire to emulate that experience!

The log tells of some of our difficulties:

Last night set course to reach Bali—allowed 1 knot westerly current.

When estimated distance run at 0500, sailed N and at dawn saw outlines of land. Rainy, misty, visibility poor.

Thought this point of land was S.E. Bali and set course to run up coast to Benoa. No visibility in frequent showers. Lost land, picked up _another_ point, and decided we were in the middle of Lombok Strait. _Terribly_ rough—roughest we’ve had yet—high, steep waves, from all directions. (Displaced all the boxes tied in the back of the cockpit—first time _that_ ever happened.)

Finally saw small island S. of Nusa Besar, and thus positively identified position. Cut south of island, across both Lombok and Bandung Straits.

Very rough, tough trip. To cross straits logged about 25 miles to make 10 good.

Finally located Benoa, in a relatively clear moment, got the leading marks in line, when a heavy shower washed out all sight. Since the entrance involves a right-hand turn and various tricky meanderings, we put about and lay off one hour until the weather cleared a bit.

When we entered, we found _buoys were completely changed_ from the pilot book and our up-to-date chart. Had to put man at masthead and con our way through the reef.

The village of Benoa turned out to be a picturesque cluster of houses and brightly painted fishing boats drawn up on a spit of land to the left of the harbor, but the port of Benoa, on the other side of the water, was less interesting. It consisted of a few large and, at this hour, quite deserted buildings beside a large dock. We drifted in, tied alongside just at dusk, and gathered on the deck wondering what to do next and whether anyone from the village should be notified of our arrival.