Whilst we are talking about formalities I can now tell you about when we cleared into Belize (didn’t want to publish anything until we had left their waters) .

We cleared in at Belize city. We had anchored offshore and the weather was pretty bad (you can’t tell from the photo but it was very windy and very rocky rolly), but because it was coming up to the Easter weekend and we had already had one unsuccessful attempt,  Roger bit the bullet and took the dinghy ashore as there were no water taxis.

We had been told that when you go ashore you then go to the reception at the Hotel Radisson and they call the officials to come down and meet you.

So Roger tried that, only to be told by the receptionist that she couldn’t do that, but there was a taxi outside who would take you to the offices. So Roger grabbed the cab and headed off to the customs office, where he collected a rather surly female customs officer and a quarantine (BAHA) officer. After that, they all went in the cab to Immigration. The immigration officer was out, but it was arranged that he would meet Roger back at the jetty in 15 mins. So the 3 (remember Roger, the customs and the quarantine officer) of them got back in the cab and went to the health department where they were joined by a health officer.  Are you following this??

Once back in the cab they all headed back to the jetty. When they got there the customs officer told Roger he would have to get a boat to take them to Beaujolais as there was no way we would get 5 people in our dinghy beside which she didn’t want to get wet!!!

Roger had already established that there were no water taxis, so went along to the coast guard to see if he could help. The guy was very helpful and agreed.

In the meantime the officers had decided it was too rough to go out to the boat, so they all piled into the coast guards office to complete the paper work, then back into the taxi to go back to their offices to get official receipts. The whole process took a lengthy 4 hrs!!!! And as a parting comment the customs officer, who had signed the documents to say that they had visited the boat, informed Roger that if we came back to Belize City we WOULD be boarded!!!!!