18:18.239N 065:7.860W

We arrive on the island of Culebra after an interesting chug through a long passage through the reef; fortunately clearly marked by buoys and transit markers.  The tricky bit was working out what on earth the Pilot Guide was on about.  The pilot guides in the Med are clearly laid out and follow a pattern so you always know where to look for information on the approach, or whether there is a laundry, or what the hazards are, or when market day is.  The guides for the Caribbean are more stream of consciousness.  Written like a badly edited novel they repeat themselves and jumble all the information up so trying to identify the critical bits of information on the approach to the anchorage took two of us comparing the guide, two charts, the chart plotter side by side until we had figured it out.

We dropped the anchor around 4pm and then had to figure out where customs and immigration were.  The guide said to take the dingy to the jetty just north of ‘the very obvious stadium’.  Not a stadium in sight.  Probably forty rickety jetties though.  Then a plane (tiny one) landed so that gave us a bit of a clue and we set off towards that side of the bay calling by another yacht to see if they knew.  They didn’t because they had checked in on another island but directed us to a jetty that they knew was for public use because they liked the bar opposite.

We tied up and walked towards where the plane had come from, found a signpost and found a teeny tiny airport.  The security guard said that the Customs and Border Protection office was closed so come back tomorrow. 

So we did.  The CBP officer wasn’t there.  We eventually spotted a notice giving a Freephone number for yachtsmen to call on arrival.  Our mobile doesn’t pick up a signal here and the payphone was out of order so we waited a while for the CBP man to come back.  He didn’t.  Mike charmed the security guard into letting us use an airport phone which he graciously did ‘Just this once’.  Yes, like we are going to keep dropping by to call our friends.

Here is Mike, on the phone (note sellotaped to the gate).  Notice too, the slightly mad staring eyes and gritted teeth.  The CBP man on the other end had immediately launched into a tirade at Mike because he hadn’t checked in the night before and was therefore in violation….. blah, blah.  When Mike explained that we had tried to check in but there was no one here he was told that he should have known to phone.  When Mike asked how he should have known that the guy told him he was being a smartass and got even more aggressive.  You can imagine how much fun Mike was having by this point.

Fortunately the CBP chap then reappears.  He didn’t look too promising, all swagger and dark glasses, but he turned out to be a delight which eased the frustration of insane form filling and the process that then ensued.

You go through the same process whether you are a big ship or a little boat which means a lot of completely irrelevant questions.  Still, it was only $25 for a one year cruising permit in all US waters.  Bad news is that we have to phone up the local CBP every time we move.  That is every time we move; not just if we change islands or State but every time we pick up or drop anchor.  An Aussie couple who have had a couple of years of this so far told us that it has taken up to 8 phone calls just to get the right number to call.  And the rules are interpreted slightly differently everywhere.  They have tried to be law abiding and do everything right at every stage and still received a written warning and $100 fine at one point!  And, this is on top of the fact that we had to be interview at the US Embassy in London to get an expensive visa because we were arriving on a private yacht!

As Brits we can of course enter the US on the visa waiver scheme then travel by car, train, bus or motorhome anywhere in the States without having to report in at the start and stop of every journey.

Anyhow, this is all in the interests of preventing terrorism so that’s alright then.   Proportionality is a concept clearly not well understood.