Indonesian Visa Hoops

Indonesia is apparently  much easier to visit and get visas for today, than in the past. As I understand it, when you arrive by boat you can ask for a free 30 day visa that is non-renewable. In most entry ports, but not necessarily all, you can pay a nominal amount ($35) and get a 30-day visa that is extendable for another 30-days. To stay longer you need a Social Visa. These are good for 60-days and are extendable another 30. A Social Visa requires a letter from a sponsor who lives in Indonesia. You can get this letter by joining one of the Indonesian rallies, races or directly from an agent in Indonesia.

A couple of comments on the rallies and why we are not going with a rally. First, we're hoping to minimize dealing with schedules and crowds. Second, the two rallies leaving from Australia start in mid-July, making it really tight for us to make the start since we're getting a late start out of here.

The SailIndonesia rally leaves out of Darwin and has a long history of taking boats to Indonesia. It is now a much smaller rally than in its heyday. This is probably due to the fact it starts in Darwin which is another 600 miles west along the top of Australia and the competition from the somewhat sneakily named newer rally, Sail2Indonesia. This rally has grown so large that they now have two start dates to accommodate the crowd (reported to be 70+ boats). The Sail2Indonesia rally is run by a guy who has a bit of a reputation among cruisers who know him from his other rallies in Tonga and Fiji. Apparently this rally does not want anyone in their rally to ever say anything negative about it, as they require each participant to agree to the rally terms, including:

No participant or crew of any participating vessel shall bring Sail2Indonesia, it’s sponsors or associated Yacht Clubs into disrepute by any action, comment, blog, article, image or posting in any way, shape or form either during or after any event or rally.

Another option to get a non-rally Social Visa is by joining the Darwin to Ambon Race. We took the third option and got our sponsorship letter for our Social Visa from Frenky Charles, an agent in Kupang (kupangyachtservice@yahoo.com). He charged $50 per letter and they came quickly via email. Paid via PayPal. And then completed the Social Visa application on our own.

Once you get the sponsorship letter, you need to get all your documents to the Indonesian Consulate including the Visa application-- available on the Consulate web page (usually), boat documentation, passport photos, crew list and port list (not enforced) noting port of entry and exit, and your passports. You can mail these with a payment to the consulate with a prepaid, self-addressed envelope to have them mailed back. The visa process takes about 4 working days. We are just too insecure about putting our passports in the mail, so we shuttled down to Sydney using cheap Jetstar flights (about $50 each way from the Gold Coast) to drop the paperwork off and pick the passports with our visas up.

Once you get your Social Visa you have to check in to the country within 90 days. We'll let you know how they work when we make the passage in early August.

Paul