The rest of Sunday turns into a mixture of hope and waiting. Eventually we're told that the General in command of the area has given us a special dispensation to come into the port and tie up. But that's the limit. We're a foreign flagged vessel arriving in a closed port - across Avachinskaya Bay is a large submarine base, the reason for the heavy restrictions.
I'm the first to clamber onto the quayside, and I advance - hand outstretched in greeting - on two women in combat fatigues. The sterner of the two gestures to me to stay where I am. OK, so I've not had a wash since last Wednesday, but really! Or maybe she thinks I'm suffering from more than a dodgy sense of humour. Then her officer appears, who boards the boat to inspect our passports, and promptly bangs his head in the low doorway. We're off to a good start.
We're not allowed to leave the port area, dilapidated as it is, until after we've cleared immigration on Monday, so we're confined to our boat, and a 20 metre radius on the quayside. They even send border guards to check on us every two hours to make sure we haven't absconded to the nearest bar. So I amuse myself by climbing one of the dockside cranes, then come back to join Alan and Steve for a few beers, courtesy of our friend Maretoshi in Miyazaki, Japan.
Pacific Networks boss Marina appears later, bearing food and drink, so we tuck into an entire chicken each, tomatoes, and some Uzbek bread. We retire early, and sleep for very nearly twelve hours.
On Monday morning we finally meet Martha, our initial contact in P-K, and then along comes a succession of officials bearing forms to be completed. The general consensus is that nobody can believe we've come halfway round the world in such a small boat. We have our fair share of forms to fill in, although many are far more appropriate to large visiting ships than a tiny powerboat. I complete the health declaration, answering "no" to all the questions about whether we're suffering from plague and rats. But when it comes to "has anybody died onboard" I hedge my bets with "not yet", and to the question about whether anyone is suffering from any disease, I put "possibly mental".
We're refuelled, but the rest of the formalities take considerably longer, so it's not until late in the afternoon that we finally get away, very nearly 24 hours after arriving. Clearly Russia is another place where the concept of urgency and world records has yet to arrive. But as Martha explains to us, "doing things here is not so much about speed and efficiency, it's keeping people occupied".
We can't wait to be occupied, too. Now we're on our way to Adak Island over 900 miles away, and looking forward eagerly to our first US landfall.
Clive Tully
Copyright Clive Tully ©2002
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