Memorable Check-In/Out

BobnLesley

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Not wishing to hijack the 'Food & Drink' thread any further, I thought I'd start a fresh one to cover memorable (good or bad) interactions; be they with national/international officialdom, or just the local marina.

A favourite for me was also in Jolly harbour, Antigua when I stepped into the Customs office after a period of breezy weather and a public holiday/long weekend; that morning dozens of yachts were wanting to leave and it was absolute pandemonium, with skippers shouting over each other and all but fighting each other for attention. On the up-side, there was TV at high level in one corner showing a West Indies v Pakistan cricket match, so I settled for watching that until things eased up a bit . Perhaps five minutes later an Officer was squeezing through the melee and enquired if I was 'an arrival or a departure?' and I told him we were arriving, so in no hurry and more than happy just to watch the cricket for a while. Whereupon he led me through the crowd, around the desk and into an office in the rear, explaining that there was a 'much better TV in here' and that if anyone asked what I was doing there, just tell them 'Officer Mac says it's OK'. Officer Mac returned only a couple of minutes later with blank arrival forms for me to fill-in whilst I was watching the cricket and again 10 minutes later to collect those along with the boat documents/passports and fifteen minutes after that he was back again with everything done and dusted, he'd even been into the Customs office next door and got our passports stamped! As there were now only another three or four overs until the end of the morning session I enquired if it'd be OK for me to stay and watch those too? "Sure Mon, stay as long as you want."
When I left - certainly less than an hour after arriving - I'd estimate that more than half of the faces in the crowded front office were the same ones that'd been there when I arrived.

My number one tip for clearing into/out of Caribbbean countries: Know who that island's most famous cricketer(s) are/were and a few details about them; drop that knowledge into your conversations with the Officers.
 

capnsensible

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Great! Gave my Manchester United passport cover to a customs lady in Jolly Harbour for her son a massive fan. She had mentioned it over a number of visits.

Have watched a football match in immigration in St Lucia. And a Manu game somewhere further south in a police station with the immigration guys.

Was in Trinidad when the world Cup draw happened and we got them in the group. I chatted to a notoriously difficult customs guy. He was great.

It pays to be nice, patient and smile. Especially in the Galspagos if you just turn up without any pre clearance paperwork. :cool:
 

KevinV

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My best was arriving in the Azores from St Martin, after a very slow passage. Not a drop of alcohol while at sea, and I'd decided 20 days at sea was the perfect time to quit smoking (huge mistake!). When we arrived I quickly explained the situation to the officials, ran to the nearest bar and returned - the paperwork was done with cigarette in one hand, ice cold beer in the other (including the officials') A real Hamlet moment :)
 

jdc

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For me it was at Salvador in Brazil, where you have to go to the Policia Federal (immigration), then Receita Federal (customs) and finally to the Capitania dos Portos (which is a branch of the Navy and in a grand and elegant white-painted military compound). I dressed up a bit for the occasion (blazer, trousers and tie) as I've found that can never hurt. On this occasion while walking through the Navy compound and looking for the correct offic,e on going round a corner I met a squad of uniformed sailors marching the other way who immediately stopped and saluted! On enquiring in my rather broken Portuguese where I would find the correct office, the NCO detailed one rating to accompany me who took me not only to the office - which was rammed with everyone clamouring for attention - but to the front of a queue and saluted again. It created rather a good impression I thought - both on me and on the official who processed our forms in record time.
 

BobnLesley

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Some places, it's worth getting an agent. Two places I find were Panama and Venezuela. Can be done on your own but very difficult.

We had a similar warning before reaching Panama but managed in/out and the canal transit very easily/pleasantly without an Agent; the only hiccough was finding the office closed when we came to checkout, but the young lady in an adjacent Government Office (the only person in the whole building?) reminded us about the major football match on TV that afternoon, before phoning the relevant officer at home and arranging for him to come down and check us out at about 7:30 that evening - I do hope he'd not driven himself to our appointment.
 

BobnLesley

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...I dressed up a bit for the occasion (blazer, trousers and tie) as I've found that can never hurt...

Our first stop in the Carib was Rodney Bay, St Lucia and as we were going through the process a guy walked in wearing a pair of cut-off jeans - no shoes or shirt - leant over the counter, tossed boat docs/passport onto an Officer's desk and said "I'm checking out" - the only words he spoke. The Officer picked them up, looked at him and tossed them back - they bounced off his arm and onto the floor- as he replied "Not until you come back fully dressed." The guy - I think a South African - stood there for perhaps twenty seconds, picked-up his papers and left. We became more casual the further that we travelled, but always turned up clean, fully dressed and at least fairly recently shaved; as you say, it can't hurt - the officer may not prove worthy of your respect, but his uniform always is.
 

BobnLesley

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...the officer may not prove worthy of your respect, but his uniform always is.

The second time we arrived in the USA was from the Bahamas arriving at St Augustine (I think they've since closed it as a Port of Entry?) where we had to travel about 5 or 6 miles to the airport to check-in. Having arrived at the locked gate there, we then had to phone the Homeland Security Officer who came and opened said gate; our taxi wasn't allowed in, nor were we permitted to ride in the Officer's car, so we had a half-mile walk to his office in the blazing sun, with the Officer driving along stopping/starting to keep us in sight the whole way - it was the same coming back and our taxi had done a runner on us by then too! Having filled out the appropriate forms the Homeland Security Officer was checking through our passports page by page in his fruitless search for Cuban stamps (was he the only person in that part of the world not to know the Cubans don't stamp your passport?) He was however rather concerned about some that he did find, particularly disliking Russia,Syria, Lebanon and Albania; I was surprised at his even recognised that, given that upon spotting the Russian one earlier, he enquired if we'd 'been to East Germany too?'; it seemed our arrival twenty five years later was the first time news of Germany's reunification had reached St Augustine. His final bitch was concerning our multiple visits into Turkey, who were apparently also members of the 'Axis of Evil' and no amount of assurances that they were in fact long standing members of NATO and on 'our side' would convince him otherwise.

He eventually allowed us in and granted us a full six months, but we took care never to check-in at St Augustine again
 

BobnLesley

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To offer some balance with regard to US Homeland Security, we once checked-out with them - you don't have to bother as a rule, but while we were 'probably' going to Cuba, there was half a chance that we may go to Mexico who do require an exit Zarpe from your last port, even if that's in the USA; so we trundled out to Key West Airport to get the necessary departure clearance.
Having explained why we needed to officially check out, we filled in the forms, handed them over and the Officer wandered away; two minutes later he was back having spotted an 'error' on my form - Lesley's was fine - in that I'd written Havana as our next port of call and he couldn't possibly issue a departure notice if we intended sailing to Cuba. The Officer gave me this 'damaged' form back, along with another blank one and once that was correctly filled in and processed, he took us through a list of 'relevant questions' advising that: "Perhaps you should let your wife answer first Sir, while you listen to her answers for any clues; Question one - Do you intend visiting Cuba?" The must've been about a dozen questions, three or four of which related to Cuba and after each of Lesley's answers to those, he would turn to me and enquire: "Have you got that Sir?"
 

BobnLesley

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Much less exotic, but arriving in Cap Breton ...

They don't need to be exotic!
I recall sailing into a Junta de Andalucia Marina in southern Spain, which I think was the one at Chipiona; we'd only come about thirty miles, but'd run into some un-forecast rough weather and arrived on their check-in pontoon tired out, pish-wet through and freezing cold. We went into the office and I enquired if we could have a shower key so that we could go get a hot shower and check-in afterwards? "No." OK, could Lesley at least go for a shower -she was shivering! - while I checked in? "No." So, she sat trembling with cold, while I filled in a handwritten form in English, the young lady re-wrote it on the Spanish version (No I couldn't just write it on that myself) and having checked that they matched, proceeded to enter all of the information on her computer, before filing away (separately) the two paper copies. Once this was complete she announced: "Ah, you were in our marina at Mazagon (as I recall) last night, information hasn't changed "Yes, that's what I told you when we arrived, in fact three times!" that got me an inane smile and a "Welcome again to a Marina de Andalucia."
Almost an hour after we'd walked in, we headed back to the boat with the relevant keys, codes and paperwork, included amongst which was a form to fill in with any review/suggestions for the marina - that got filled in! Including a mention of why I'd allowed my crew to go and have a shower instead of immediately moving our boat from the arrivals dock to its allocated berth; the mariniero's concerns about me blocking the dock for other arriving boats didn't carry much weight with me as we were taking up 27' of perhaps 200' of dock, at dark o'clock in early April. I remember now that it was on April 1st - we reckoned that the Meteo Spain forecast had been their April Fools joke!
 

doug748

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Much less exotic, but arriving in Cap Breton (having survived the rollercoaster entry channel) we were handed a bag containing bottle of wine, corkcsrew, pen, local guide and cheese!

(y) Excellent, Great welcome in St Malo last year and I was given a Dry bag containing pen, keyring etc. Memories of Customs at Nelson's Dockyard not so sunny, will brush up on Caribbean cricketers

.
 

Skylark

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They don't need to be exotic!
Threatened with arrest by Croatian police for arriving in the very early hours of a Sunday morning at what we hoped was a
Port of Refuge (from a storm). Escorted another 3 hours at sea to arrive at Split.

Next time we arrived in Croatia we were threatened with a fine for not travelling direct to a Port of Arrival. The officer was very disappointed to hear our explanation that our boat track had turned north in order to drop the sails before entering the port.

Not my favourite country ☹️
 

Tradewinds

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Being threatened with being chucked out of the whole of French Polynesia by the pock-faced little Hitler in Papeete wasn't one of the highlights of my travels.

Thank you HSBC for blocking my bond payment. Never got back the £££s in small change it cost in multiple phone calls I made from a telephone box by the harbour.

To be fair, it was a 'security issue' flagged up by the bank. Not as easy to communicate back home in the 90s! Was a worrying few days for us all though - sorted in the end (we had the Honorary British Consul on standby - it helps to have cruising friends with connections).
 
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st599

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Managed to check out of Malawi walked 20m to Tanzania - refused entry. Walked back to Malawi - refused entry as we'd been to Tanzania.

Had to get all sorts of expensive innoculations before we could exit no-mans land. The NHS had refused to give us them as the UK database shows them as not required. Work travel clinic wouldn't give them either for the same reason. Problem was Tanzania didn't agree with the NHS. Just glad I'd been carrying a set of needles, my mate hadn't.

Same trip HSBC cancelled my card due to suspicious activities on the Malawian border (not the injections, buying a can of coke).
 

rotrax

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Not a check in/check out item, but worth relating nonetheless.

One Sunday night returning from a Czech Speedway gig I was driving the faithful Iveco race truck containg five guy's and four bikes, tools, race clothing and prizes - it had been a good trip with two of us on the lower steps of the box.

A French police car indicated to follow him. I did, we ended up at a wide gated entrance to a lorry yard just outside Dunquirke.

A French Douane's team was waiting. A guy asked what was in the back, I told him, he had a look. A collegue showed him our names in the programmes from the weekend, seemed to satisfy him. He climbed in, poked around, came out covered in the muck off the bikes to the delight of his mates who took delight in his dirty uniform.

He then handed over to a raunchy good looking chick, very tasty in her uniform with a Glock strapped to her side. She asked, in a very sexy french accented go at English " 'Ave yoo anysing tu declare? "

I looked her up and down, winked, threw my arms wide and said " I love you! "

The team - even the dirty one, pissed themselves laughing and sent us on to the ferry.

Great days....................... :cool:
 

Frogmogman

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My number one tip for clearing into/out of Caribbbean countries: Know who that island's most famous cricketer(s) are/were and a few details about them; drop that knowledge into your conversations with the Officers.

You make a good point. I recall once checking out of Saint Lucia at Rodney Bay with Bajansailor. The immigration officer (maybe it was your friend from #7), spotting that we had a few days left on our visas, asked “why are you leaving? You can stay a few more days. Do you not like our island ? “

We explained that we wanted to head up to Martinique for a few days, before heading back to Bim.

He shook his head sadly, saying “why bother ? They not even play cricket”
 

Yngmar

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The time we checked out of Tunisia and then got intercepted at sea, forced to return and told there was a court case pending against us certainly was memorable.

I've blogged about it here (the checkout bit is about halfway into the article): That Tunisia Trip

Top tip I've received from an experienced cruiser afterwards that would've probably avoided all of this: "Never check out of banana countries" (his words). Meaning that you just tell them you're going to another port down the coast and then when well out to sea you change your mind because of weather conditions and head to another country without checking out. They have to accept this and the missing checkout stamp in the passport isn't an issue.
 

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Much less exotic, but arriving in Cap Breton (having survived the rollercoaster entry channel) we were handed a bag containing bottle of wine, corkcsrew, pen, local guide and cheese!
The Cap Breton wine is indeed a pleasant welcome. Something of a tradition on the Atlantic France coast; I have a cap from Minimes, a pop-top container from La Rochelle (ideal ear plug receptical) and have enjoyed numerous complimentary sardines after visiting Port la Vie. Wine is preferred, though.
 

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