In this blogpost, we share about the formalities for sailing to Anambas islands. If you’d like to read about our experience during this trip, here’s part one and part two.

We hope this post will be useful to all boaters who are keen to visit the beautiful archipelago of the Anambas regency.

Prior to covid years, our usual CIQP (Customs, Immigration, Quarantine Health and Port Clearance) point was at Nongsa Point Marina, Batam, where we do a pit stop before sailing to Anambas Islands. However, in its efforts to boost tourism in this beautiful archipelago, Anambas Islands has now opened its port for international arrivals such that yachts can clear directly at Tarempa, which was in the northern region of the cluster. Hence, this time, we decided to give it a try and sail directly to Tarempa. As we were new to this process, we tried to get in touch with various offices to enquire more information prior to the trip.

There are 2 options you may consider: 1) engaging an agent to process the clearance on your behalf, or 2) doing it yourself. We’ll share about the pros and cons of each option.

CIQP Clearance Process (Direct)

1-2 months before the trip, we managed to get in touch with the customs office and port office. We enquired about the documents we needed to prepare, and the officers were very informative and helpful, although Google Translate was much needed. After some messages back & forth, we managed to consolidate as follows:

List of Documents for Arrival:

1. Crew & Passenger List

2. Boat Documents & Insurance

3. Letter of Notice of Arrival (indicating your boat details, no. of crew & passengers, date and time of arrival, and next port)

4. All Passports and Vaccination Documents

5. Declare the arrival of your vessel in their Vessel Declaration System portal

6. Green Health Book (required for all ports in Indonesia)

7. Ship Sanitation Certificate - For yachts in Singapore, you will need to submit your application via NEA at least 2 weeks in advance, an officer will then be scheduled to come to your yacht for an inspection before issuing the certificate, which you can then collect at the NEA office).

8. Q Flag (to fly upon arrival until you have cleared CIQP)

Arrival Check-in

Upon arrival at 7am, we dropped our anchor, hoisted the Q flag and Indonesia flag, prepared our documents and changed into appropriate attire (covered shoulders, decent berms and proper footwear, no swimwear, sleeveless, or slippers) in respect of the formalities. Then, 3 of us (including our Master and Skipper) took our dinghy to the port to visit the respective offices, while the rest of the passengers remained on board the yacht. We were informed of the following steps required:

1. First, a Quarantine Health officer will need to board your yacht for an inspection before anyone is allowed to land. On board, you will need to present the documents above, and the officer will also inspect your first aid kits and medicines. The officer was kind and friendly.

2. After you have cleared the Quarantine Health department, you will need to bring your documents to the Immigration office and Customs office for clearance. Only the Master/Skipper is required, the rest need not follow along. All the offices were located within walking distance from the port, and were not difficult to locate with the help of the officers who were generous in offering directions or even walking with us to the next office. The officers were very friendly and welcoming, the Immigration officers even invited us to film a little video testimonial for their Facebook page to promote their good service and hospitality, you should check it out! :D

3. A Customs officer will also need to be brought to your yacht for a visual inspection on the items and any goods on board.

4. Once all 3 were cleared, the last step is to bring your stamped documents to the Port Master, who will review your documents and conduct an ‘interview’ before approving you for entry into their waters. Unfortunately, the interview was not as smooth as our experience in the other officers. The Port Master required our skipper to be dressed in long pants and shoes (he was wearing a short-sleeved button-up shirt, berms and Keen shoes), so we had to make a trip back to the yacht to change before going back again. Upon return, he requested for our skipper’s license and proof of our crew’s qualifications/proficiency, and also questioned our skipper about the yacht’s seaworthiness, hull integrity, lifesaving and firefighting equipment certifications. After going back and forth on our dinghy at least 3 times to fulfill his requests, he finally approved our entry into Anambas Islands. This was our first time in our 9 years of sailing being questioned to this extent. During the interview, he did mention a few times that the process will be smoother if we had hired an agent.

We were not required to pay any fees at this point.

We had initially thought we could explore the port once we cleared CIQP, but unfortunately, it was 2pm by the time the ‘interview’ ended and we had to make our way to our planned anchorage before sundown. The port was a busy, colourful town with many shops selling fresh fruits and produce, toys and wares, restaurants serving simple yet delicious-looking Indonesian meals, offices, schools, residences and a mini-highway leading to the prominent mosque. If you have time, it would be nice to spend half a day walking about in this bustling port.

Departure Check-out

For checking out, it was a similar process as check-in. It was possible to split up and visit the offices concurrently.

1. One of us brought the Customs officer to the yacht for an inspection before returning to the office for our documents to be processed and stamped. We did not need to pay any fee here.

2. Another one went to the Immigration office to present our passports and boat documents. We were also not required to pay any fee here. We had friendly conversations here, so I enquired if any of the Anambas islands was a marine park or protected area and if there was any conservation or entry fees, they were confused and said no.

3. Subsequently, we visited the Health Quarantine office where he prepared our documents, stamped our Health Book, and collected a fee of 30,000 rupiah (~SGD 3). The officer was a kind, senior man who didn’t speak much English. Allow us to highlight that due to the language barrier, we mistakenly took out 300,000 rupiah but he promptly corrected me that it was only 30,000 rupiah, which we appreciated very much.

4. Lastly, we visited the Port office, where we paid 41,000 rupiah (~SGD 4+) in port dues. We had to wait 2 hours for the Port Master to arrive in office, but this time, he merely signed off on our port clearance and said he hoped to see us again.

CIQP Clearance Process (via Agent)

During our pre-trip research, we also given the contact of an agent who could assist us with all the formalities for a fee. Upon enquiring with the agent, he quoted us SGD 850 (which was later reduced to SGD 650 because “you are small boat”) for:

1. Clearance in from Singapore (CIQP) handling

2. Clearence out to Singapore (CIQP) handling

3. Government levy

4. Konservation of park - we assumed this was fees for Marine Park Conservation.

However, as mentioned above, all the officers we met did not mention any conservation fees, and said it was not designated as a Marine Park, hence we were not sure what #4 was for. Side note: We find that it may be a possibility that Anambas Islands becomes a protected Marine Park in future, as it seemed about time to start protecting this beautiful archipelago and its marine life through some form of regulation and control. At some of the islands where we dived, there was evidence of dynamite fishing where huge areas of corals were blasted and bleached, sadly.

Although we did not engage his services, he was there at the port ready to receive and assist us. However, we told him we will do it ourselves.

A friend of ours had hired this agent to assist with the formalities, and shared with us that the agent mentioned one of the plus points of hiring an agent is to save time and hassle. For instance, the agent can meet the yacht wherever she decides to visit (as some islands may be far from the port) to collect all necessary documents, visit the offices in Tarempa and ensures all documents are processed accurately, before returning to wherever the yacht is to pass the documents. Hence, yachts do not need to waste time traveling to Tarempa for clearance or going through the hassle and wait in visiting the offices. This option would make sense for yachts who are bringing guests and have a tight itinerary, but be prepared to pay a substantial fee for this service.

OUR THOUGHTS

For boaters who could spare the time, we find it might be a better option to do this process directly, not just to save money (SGD 7 direct versus SGD 650 via agent) and avoid paying any unnecessary fees, but also to have the opportunity to meet the local officers, so you can hear more about their beautiful country, and share with them your experience here. You may encounter a stressful ‘interview’ with the unwelcoming Port Master (we’re unsure if it was a one-off experience and we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he was upset that we did not hire an agent, or he was just doing his job and conducts this interview with all foreign yachts), but we believe over time with more yachts taking this direct approach, the government will see the benefits of visiting yachts supporting its efforts of boosting tourism and attracting international arrivals.

We hope the above is useful for all fellow boaters! Feel free to drop us any questions/thoughts/suggestions in the comments below!

We also want to give a shoutout to these 2 sailing blogs - MV Moken and The Howarths - thanks to these sailors who provided a detailed account about their sailing trip in Anambas Islands, we found many useful tips and information that helped us in planning our trip.

Otherwise, check out what we saw and did at Anambas Islands in our other blogposts:

If you’d like to join us on our next adventure..