When you sail in to another country, things are not quite as simple as they are at the airport.
For seasoned sailing cruisers, this is all old-hat, so this post is certainly directed at our land lubber friends and family :)
The process begins many many miles out to sea, or for those without any email at sea, before they leave the last port.
The first step is to notify the authorities in the destination country that you intend to visit their fine land. This is the first of many forms you will complete where you repeat certain information so often, it quickly becomes memorised.
If everything goes accordin to plan (you’d be surprised how often it doesn’t!),
you find yourself in the territorial waters of the country you notified, and then raise the mighty Q flag.
Mariners just love their flags!
The Q flag is a simple yellow flag “Quarantine” flag, and it is raised up the flag halyard to announce to the world that you are a foreign vessel, and as such, potentially hazardous to the environment, and are hereby under quarantine. No person or object shall enter or exit the boat until such time as the captain has completed his or her clearances with the relevant authorities.
After a radio call or two you find yourself anchored or tied up in the designated area and the great foot shuffle begins.
This usually takes somewhere between 3-8 hours depending on how many officials you need to see, how far you have to walk to get to the next place, how well hidden they are, and how consistent the information is between bureaus. It is not unheard of for office A to send you to office B who tells you to go away because you dont have the pink form which is obtained from office C. Office C is closed for lunch, so you massage your feet for an hour and arrive at C, only to be told that the pink form comes from office A, but you don't need it to go to office B anyway... and so the shuffle proceeds. In some places, the officials thoroughly enjoy their power, but seldom seem to like their job, and it's not uncommon for officials to want more than the prescribed amount for their services rendered.
In our case, we arrived after dark and there was nobody to answer our radio calls. A cruise ship had just left - actually, lets pause and talk about this cruise ship for a moment...
...a few miles out of port Moselle, I watched a cruise ship heading out of the harbour. A few quick calculations and I said to Michelle "That guy is going to get in the way”. She thought he would go another way, and the bet was on! As we headed across the channel, the cruise ship disappeared under our sail and turned toward us. I watched on our AIS system which tells me about his speed and direction, and estimates the closest point of interest, and calculates when that will happen. The numbers were changing rapidly and he was coming toward us at 16 knots and accelerating. Meanwhile, the crew aboard another yacht we shall call “Muppet” were starting to become concerned. They were motoring in rapidly falling light with no lights, and a huge cruise ship bearing down on them! They turned to starboard... fair enough. Then they turned to port... errr what? Then they turned to starboard again... Michelle ran to get the camera.
I figured the cruise ship captain was going to have his hands full, so I made a courteous turn to port, indicating to him I not be any trouble.
The TCPA (Time until we get as close as it will be) was now less than three minutes.
Muppet was still changing course and clearly panicking.
The spectacle was hilarious, but quickly moving toward dangerous!
Muppet finally decided that port was the best option, and turned enough to avoid a catastrophic event.
In another senseless move, they then remained only meters from the ship, while the crew stood on the bow and chatting to the passengers who watched from their balconies.
The matter of the bet was long forgotten in the shenanigans.
OK, so the cruise ship had departed, and we decided we could fit into the space they had left :).
They next day, while I was out doing the shuffle, the port authorities came by (twice) to inform Michelle that we were anchored in the cruise ship area, and we had better move before the next one came along at 2pm.
We used our dinghy to get close to the various offices and Michelle, who is not allowed on the shore at this point, stayed in the dinghy and floated around while I filled out forms and smiled nicely.
Harbour master - Check!
Immigration - Check!
Customs - Check!
Quarantine / Biosecurity...
…We had been informed that New Caledonia is a bit like NZ. ie. they take everything! Cheese, meat, eggs, fruits & veges, frozen goods... everything!
The shuffle become a more involved exercise as we hauled bags of food from the dinghy and I hobbled to & fro (with my broken jandal). Biosecurity let us keep heaps of stuff we thought we would lose! Frozen beans, frozen fish, frozen chicken, pies, pizzas, even a cheesecake! Apparently, the fact that we had bought this stuff in NZ meant it was not a risk. Brilliant!! The fruit and vegetables were taken away, but they would easily be replace at the local markets the next morning.
The last item to surrender was the garden... Michelle likes to nest, and our assortment of succulents and ferns were to be handed over to the surprised biosecurity officials. I made the short hobble-hike back to the dinghy to collect the box full of plants. The officials were so impressed with the garden that they took photos. Michelle thinks they just wanted a record of her cool home made candle-pots.
Everything here was very straightforward and friendly. The French authorities have been well organised and easy to deal with. We are officially cleared in and can stay for three months.
We will stay anchored near town for now so we can work with local people to find the parts we need and make a few minor repairs.