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.