Supine Being
Well-Known Member
Bloody bureaucrats still messing up our holidays!!
Can't afford €550 fine whatever the (unbelievably complicated/idiotic) reasons behind it.
Still don't know where liveaboards stand who are allowed to fill but pay reduced duty for cooking/heating purposes.
As far as I am concerned, until someone in a government/the EU states there is no issue, and all the Customs/Douane agree with it, I'm not able to go back to Holland or Belgium as I am not risking my hard earned cash to fund some bizzare fine about the colour of the fuel that is not even related to the duty paid and where!!
It's all bo11ox as I am getting sick of summer holidays to the South Coast of the UK sitting in Gosport in the rain........I would rather be eating moules and drinking Leffe etc
I got boarded in Ostend last summer. They guys had a form full of tick boxes. We were pleasant and offered coffee (why not, we're on holiday!) and answered all their questions. They asked everything... flares in date? name of home port on stern? VHF license? oars for dinghy? Lead line? They took my word for most of it, and they very pointedly avoided the question of what colour fuel I had in my tank. What sort of fuel, yes, but what colour? No.
My view is that they want to be seen to be doing their jobs, but they don't want to chase off tourists without a good reason. Fair enough. I would go back.