Its government officials who drive you to it.
I’ve never mentioned it out loud, but we spent 8 months in the U.S. flying under
the radar, purely because we’d been given conflicting information from different government departments and ended up trapped there.
Having been led a song and dance with promises of time extensions, at the last
minute we were told we couldn’t get them. We were sitting in Miami with no way
of leaving the country before our time was up at midnight. We had only a matter
of hours to decide between leaving our boat there and flying out, and having
overstayed we’d be taking the chance of not being allowed back in, or staying
with the boat, removing all ID, flags etc and working on her until she was ready
to put to sea again.
We chose to stay with the boat and quietly made our way to the top of
Chesapeake Bay to turn the boat we’d just bought into one that could
be handled by just Sandy and me.
When the time came to leave we were pretty nervous. Border Security is
very active and we had already been boarded once on the way from Key West to
Miami. Back then all our papers were still in order so the heavily armed team
with their super fast boat only spent 5 minutes on board. They were friendly
enough and just photographed all our documents and passports. But they’d
appeared suddenly, right next to us, seemingly out of nowhere.
We weren’t going to escape easily. The trip down Chesapeake Bay was our
shakedown and Tom was sailing with us so we’d have extra hands for any work
that may need to be done.
We anchored in a bay at Solomons Island and it just happened that there was
to be a massive party that night to celebrate the opening of the sailing season.
Police were everywhere, roads were blocked off and everyone knew it was going to be huge.
Tom and I decided we’d go up to the club by dinghy for an hour or two to see the celebration, listen to the live bands etc. Sandy had no appetite for the crush and
said she’d hold the fort. We decided we’d not take chances with big crowds and
light fingered patrons, so we left Drivers licenses, passports etc in the boat
and just took a bit of cash.
Soon Wind Wanderer was out of sight around a bend and we could hear the
ear shattering music long before the club was even close. About a hundred
yards from the Club the outboard motor died. The water line had blocked
and it overheated.
While we were drifting slowly back, Tom said “Don’t look around but there’s
a boat approaching and the guys are in uniform. Maybe they’ll just go past”.
No such luck. The water police were there to catch drunk and disorderlies
on the water later that night, and made their way over.
“What’s the problem?”
“Outboard overheated so we’re just letting it cool.”
They looked at the dinghy.
“Where are your registration numbers?”
“Um… we don’t have any because this is just a tender for a sailboat
(American for yacht).”
“You’re in Maryland. If it has a motor it has to be registered.”
Getting out his ticket book…
“But it’s just a tender for an Australian vessel.”
“Where’s the vessel’s name then?”
“Well, in Australia we don’t have to register the tender, or have the
boat’s name on it”.
“But you’re in Maryland. Where are your lifejackets?”
“Um… on the sailboat.”
“You have to have one for each person in your dinghy.”
“Well, we didn’t know… sorry about that.”
“Where’s your sound device?”
“Sound device? What’s a sound device?”
“Something to attract attention. Usually a whistle, could be an air
horn.”
“Um… don’t have one. In Australia we don’t…”
“You’re in Maryland. So you do. You’re in a bit of trouble here.”
Starting to write. If only he knew!
“I’m going to have to see some ID.”
“Um… I don’t have any on me?”
“What? No boat licence, drivers licence, passport?”
“Well, we were going to the club and thought it would be wiser to leave
all that stuff on the boat, just around the corner…”
The older guy had been watching his younger colleague doing all the
talking, and I’d noticed his smile getting broader as the dialogue progressed.
At this point the young buck turned to his senior, clearly not sure what to do
next.
Years of practical experience stepped in.
“You know what I’m thinking?”
“What?”
“ These guys don’t exist!”
“But I’ve already started writing the citation. We can give them a
warning for everything except the life jackets.”
The older guy looked at me.
“How long you goin’ to be in Maryland?”
“About 24 hours”.
“I thought so. Give them the citation for the jackets. They’ll be gone
before you hand it in. Now let’s go catch some pissheads. You have a
safe trip back to Australia, and come visit us again sometime.”
I took the ticket and returned their waves as they took off.
That was way too close!
Sitting at anchor in Norfolk, Virginia, waiting for a weather window to
head out across the Gulf Stream, we had a large Naval Base right between
us and freedom. Eventually a weather window arrived and we motored out
past everything from aircraft carriers to small personnel transport boats,
every single one feeling like it was about to grab us by the scruff of the neck
and drag us off to a dimly lit room somewhere.
But eventually we’d passed the last channel buoy, got the sails up and
were making our dash for freedom. Just 12 miles to go. We were nearly there
when a naval helicopter flew over the top of us and started hovering a few miles
further ahead. When they dropped lines and divers slid down into the sea,
we couldn’t believe our eyes. Talk about overkill! Then another helicopter flew
over in the same direction, veered right and dropped more.
A guilty conscience is a terrible thing. They were way more interested
in their naval exercise than a few delinquent sailors heading out.
Besides, they are so tuned in to people trying to get in I’m not sure they’d know
what to do with people trying to get out.
This was not the only time we took our life of piracy to those lengths.
When we left Panama there was an official who had a reputation for dreaming up
all kinds of last minute costs, to be paid in cash before issuing a zarpe
(official clearing out certificate).
We decided to just leave rather than play his game. The Marquesas was 3500 miles away and they’d hardly send us back for one.
And we were right. The gendarmerie couldn’t have cared less.
We thought we’d left all that behind us, but officialdom in Australia is almost as bad. Let me hasten to add, not in terms of corruption, but more an environment of officialdom that is way over the top compared to most other countries and oppressive to us after we’ve become so used to our Wind Wandering freedom.
Before leaving Fiji we notified Aussie Customs that we would be sailing in to Brisbane in December and would be leaving via Darwin around July.
Although we had registered Wind Wanderer as an Australian vessel, as required
for all law abiding citizens buying a boat overseas, we were not importing her.
We just needed a cruising permit, or whatever document would enable us to transit
Australia.
We anticipate that when the time eventually comes to sell, the market
will be either the USA or Europe.
Customs wouldn’t have a bar of it and insisted we would have to fully import the boat, paying duty and gst (general sales tax).
In effect we would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to transit our home country. We quoted chapter and verse where exceptions could be made but they maintained we didn’t qualify.
By now we were in New Caledonia, and we emailed further validation of
our position. We hadn’t had a response before we left for Brisbane.
As recorded earlier, we had a rough trip home and it came as an added shock
to be handed an email advising us we had to pay up or leave within 30 days,
and were restricted to the Brisbane Port Control area until we paid or left.
They hadn’t thought it through very well because to ‘re-export’ the boat within
30 days would mean forcing us out in cyclone season. Anywhere north was out
of the question, leaving only New Zealand.
Leaving for NZ from Queensland after November is the dangerous season
according to Cornell's World Cruising Routes, so they would have to revise their position to let us sail to NSW for the departure, and give us more time.
Probably not much of interest in the detail but we eventually found a niche that would enable the box tickers to tick all their little boxes, and still get us more or
less what we wanted.
A flurry of emails and phone calls to Canberra and meetings down there won the day. We are officially but temporarily non-resident Australians and as such can
have a temporary import permit. On payment of a sizeable bond we would be
released and will get the bond back on clearing out.
We then had to employ the services of an import agent who was quick and
efficient, but officialdom still kept us tied up in Brisbane for days.
In fact we eventually left before our ‘release’, (pirates again, escaping custody)
knowing everything was submitted.
We were half way down the coast to Lake Macquarie in NSW by the time we were free to leave Brisbane.
Even so, we only just made it home for Christmas.
Until next time…..