Customsafusimication!
The side door is locked and being Easter Saturday there is nobody around. So the lady running the food stall in the ferry terminal says why not go up there pointing toward, well, customs not surprisingly, but of the ferry kind not the yachtie kind.
I then caused all kinds of excitement when I walked up through the security scanner expecting to go round the back to Customs as opposed to the usual back alley. Ooops gone too far. So a security guard comes down and walks us round to the underground side door, unlocks it and lets us through.
So it’s down the side alley
And back to Customs
As we approach the oneway glass we can hear lots of loud voices in the 2 desk customs room. On the door it clearly says ‘Knock and Enter’ so we give it a go wondering what’s around the corner. Oh no, not today, no way were we allowed anywhere near that room today. There’s about 20 guys in the two desk office.
So the official looks at our documents and said do you have any changes to make? No none but we need to check out. It’s OK he says you can go. You have 14 days free cruising and you can leave in that time.
Can we go down the coast to Portsmouth? What about the cruising permit?
No you can go anywhere you like in the 14 days and leave. You are already checked out.
Sure?
Yes.
OK. He wants us gone to get back to his buddies and we walk back down the alley. Of course we are locked in. Back to customs, knock on the door and there’s the 20 odd guys having a great time with their rum on ice yacking away. I guess the last ferry of the week went out recently.
Back down we go and the gate is unlocked so we can clear off….better go back and rewrite our understanding of the rules, or maybe it’s ‘the last ferry on Saturday’ ruling.
