Day 94, Year 5: Just Waiting . . . and Waiting
Date: Thursday, January 28, 2010
Weather: Clear, Sunny Day
Here we still sit in front of the Taj Malabar Hotel in the ‘new arrivals’ temporary anchorage off Willingdon Island. We are officially checked-in and have permission to move to the main anchorage off Bolgatty Island, but we have to wait until in the morning when there is a higher tide. We are almost sitting on the bottom where we are now and there are places that are too shallow between here and Bolgatty at anything less than high tide. So we will WAIT.
We awoke this morning to what sounded like church bells. Surprisingly, at least to us, is that a majority of the people in Cochin are Christian (mostly Catholic due to the Portuguese influence in the days of Vasco de Gama). So I guess hearing church bells should not be so unusual. But maybe they are just the bells from the clock tower. Anyway, the highlight of today was not the bells, it was w-a-i-t-i-n-g. Here’s that story.
Before going to shore, those of us anchored here were visited by the local boat boys trying to solicit our business while in Cochin. We had been told that the best of the boat boys (these are grown men but I have no better name for them) is Nazar on Boat No. 72. But now all of the boat boys seem to have the same name as Nazar and we were visited by Nazar on Boat No. 113 and Nazar on Boat No. 72-the real thing. We then got in the dinghy, went to pick up Ed and Lynne of Constance, and stopped by Freebird to see Judy and Dave. They were surprised that we were going to shore because they had been told by Customs last night that they would pick us up and bring take us to shore. Customs had not told us or Constance this, so we proceeded. But as you shall find out at the end of the today’s story, we should have let them pick us up. We found a place to tie our dinghy and were immediately met by a man in military dress asking us where we were going. We explained that we were going to the harbormaster’s office to check-in, but he looked very puzzled. Finally, he let us go with some young man who was to be our escort. We walked passed the hotel and got to the government complex referred to as the clock tower. And there is, indeed, a clock tower there. The complex looks as though it was once a grand affair, but even though the buildings have been freshly painted, the gardens are obviously not as grand as they once were. We got to the harbormaster’s office, very small, and filled out forms. We were told to pay 420 rupees and then to WAIT for a receipt. We waited for an hour and half and finally the receipts came. But they had to be signed by someone in a different office, so once again we waited. And waited. And waited. By this time, Judy and Dave of Freebird were with us. They had been picked up by Customs as they were told and sent to the harbormaster’s office with Ibrahim from Boat No. 113. Ibrahim talked with the officials who told us to go on to Customs without the receipts of payment. So we did But Customs told us they could do nothing without the receipts, so Ibrahim suggested that we just go to lunch. Since we were in a government complex, we were taken to what seemed like a government lunch cafeteria. Only men were eating in the cafeteria, but we sat at a table and were served a delicious lunch. Actually it was much more like a dinner of rice and curried soup with various pickled condiments, and chappatis (fried flat bread). Mark ordered a side of curried chicken and others had fish. Anyway, it was Grade A cafeteria food. Then we returned to the harbormaster’s office and continued to wait for the receipts of payment. Still nothing. So now we were told to go to Immigration and come back for the receipts. We got in what are referred to as auto rickshaws that took us to the Immigration Office. Actually the process there was fairly straight forward and we were in and out quickly. But then we asked where we might get Indian SIM cards for our cell phones and Ibrahim took us across the street to a little news stand. It seemed to take forever, but finally we had working cell phones and headed back to the harbor master’s office. Again, we waited. Then finally the signed receipts arrived and we were ushered off to Customs. We thought the process there would be quick, but not so. Again we waited in one office and were then moved to another office where we waited again. Finally at 4 pm, we were cleared in and given permission to move to our boats. But because of the tides, we will wait until morning. We got back to the pier where we had left our dinghy and discovered that it was well dug into the mud. Ibrahim jumped down off the pier to try and move the dinghy, but he needed to get the motor tipped up. Mark explained to him how to release the motor, but unfortunately he pushed too hard and the mechanism broke. So he and Nazar had to pick up the dinghy and move it to deeper water. We had to climb down from the pier to Nazar’s boat and then into our dinghy. This is when we wished we had let Customs pick us up and take us back to our boat. It will take a bit of figuring to work out how to fix the dinghy motor so we can once again tilt it up out of the water. This is necessary every time you take the dingy to a beach, rather than a dingy dock, so we have to get that fixed. But we are checked-in and in a new country with a totally different feel from Southeast Asia. We have been told that part of the Indian experience is getting used to waiting. So we have had a good introduction.
Our daughter Heather wrote and said she was surprised by our comment that coming into Cochin seemed like the first major harbor since leaving Boston. She wondered why Singapore didn’t rate, in our minds, as a major port. And she has a good point. But the difference is that in Singapore, we crossed VERY busy shipping lanes and waited for Customs to come to us in a boat. Then we went into a marina at Sentosa Island and never saw any sort of port except from land. Singapore is one of the world’s major shipping ports, but it doesn’t feel like that when you enter. Here, you enter through a channel with the big guys and are met by harbor patrol and boarded by Customs official in white uniforms. All boat movement is controlled by Port Control from whom you must obtain permission before moving your boat. You are looking across the channel to the huge cranes that load the container ships, and see in front of you the high rise buildings in the city. None of these things were visible in Singapore, so even though it is definitely a larger port, we never saw the evidences other than the traffic in the shipping lanes.
That all for now. You’ll have to WAIT until tomorrow to hear more about Cochin.
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| 100128 Day 94 India–Willingdon Island |
