Bureaucratic hassles

 Hi everyone,

It's the biggest challenge of my cruise to date. Nope, not the tropical storm. Not navigational challenges. It is trying to get an extension for my cruising permit so I don't get arrested and thrown out of the country. It used to be easy. You would sail into an approved port, hoist the yellow flag, and go ashore to the customs office. There would be forms to fill out and sign, attesting to how many deaths had occurred aboard and whether the bubonic plague was present. After these niceties were dispensed with you would receive the cruising permit, after the payment of a nominal fee.

Those happy and carefree days are now gone. The computer age has been rammed down our throats and I am not happy about it. A good bit of my time during the last several days has been spent on this fruitless exercise. I referred in an earlier post when Britt and I entered the country as to what a challenge it was. Britt was able to eventually figure it out, but only with the aid of a borrowed desktop computer and the better chunk of a day. The people at the Customs office here in Georgetown are of zero help so far, which is really unusual for the Bahamas, where the people are super friendly. Roger Wallace has said he would help me but I don't want to chew up his time. This procedure should not require a degree in computer science. I have heard from a number of other people complaining about this procedure as well. Additionally, the fee for a cruising permit has risen far beyond the rate of inflation, adding insult to injury. Back in 1985 I paid $50. This year? $800!

Enough whining Charlie. The in the harbor race was a ton of fun! We won our class, which was 36 to 39 footers, and were first across the finish line. A blast from the cannon was very cool. Roger Wallace and Susan DiSimone were awesome crew. It has been fun hanging out with them. We will be doing the around the island race on Thursday. Conditions were such that I was able to use my big genoa. The second boat to finish was two seconds behind us. Great fun!

Cheers, Charlie