36:56.128N 027:.294E
Muskrat
Chris and Alison
Thu 13 Jul 2023 18:27
After arriving in Leros we didn’t expect to spend the next 8 days here. But the Meltemi just kept on blowing, more yachts kept arriving for shelter, the anchorage is very sheltered For the N/NW/NE, and we had the town just a short dinghy ride away to get off the boat, so staying was not much of a hardship. We chatted to another couple who were sheltering from the wind, they had been visiting Türkiye for many years so had a lot of recommendations for us. One of these was to book into Türkiye via Teos. This was a bit further north than we had planned but with their enthusiasm for the place and the anchorages we decided to try to make the journey north via Samos for immigration and into Türkiye via Teos. They gave us a name of an agent to do the paperwork in Türkiye, so we sent him an email to get an idea of the cost. Last year the cost was just over €200 to use an agent to book into Türkiye, but this year Türkiye have introduced a new transit log, so we now have to pay for a new transit log despite already having one from last year.
The agent came back very quickly with his coatings; €90 for the new transit log, €100 for “customs overtime and taxi” and €120 for the agency fee!! Needles to say we sent off some more emails to other areas for comparison. Bozburun did not reply, Didim came back with a total of €210, and Datca came back with €110. So the decision was made to go to Datca instead. We are not convinced that the price quoted includes all the fees but as we can book out of Greece from Leros it made sense to go with that quote and take it from there.
So not wanting to spend any more time in Leros, we went ashore late afternoon to get the immigration process complete, simple!! Not a bit of it. The Port Police (PP) in Leros did not want to know and said we had to go to Agia Marina, on the other side of the island for immigration. As it was now late afternoon we had missed the buses so we got a taxi, €8, to Agia Marina. The taxi driver dropped us off outside customs, we didn’t need customs, we have an unlimited transit log (see previous posts) so he told us to go to the Police just up the road and drove off. Thinking it would be the PP we went along only to be accosted by a very angry Police officer who told us he was not the PP and we had to go Leros marina to do immigration procedures. He said he didn’t speak any English when we tried to tell him we had been sent here from Leros marina, but made himself very clear in good English where we should go, there was no discussion so we left him to stew.
There was nothing for it but to try the customs office. We found a Port Policeman in the office who couldn’t have been any more polite and chatty and said that of course he could do the immigration process for us. 10 minutes later we had our passports stamped and we were officially out of Greece. However, when we asked him to stamp our transit log he said we would have to go back to Leros Marina PP for that to be done.
Taxi ride back to Leros marina, €8, and into the PP station again. This time we asked for transit log services and were directed to a different office. Thankfully this Policeman was also very cheerful and obliging and although he went through our paperwork with a fine tooth comb, he did the business and our transit log was duly stamped. We were now free to leave.
The next morning we left Leros at 0850 bound for Pserimos anchorage for an overnight stop before a 50nm sail to Datca in Türkiye.
It is officially summer.
Sent from my iPad