Hello Again

We have made it back into the Caribbean after 6 months in the states. We sailed down to Hampton Virginia at the end of October. Our visas ran out on the 27th October so we handed them into immigration informing them we would be leaving the states as soon as a weather window appeared. The official seemed happy with this though did warn us to keep out of trouble. We were now illegal citizens.

We were there however for over 3 weeks. Hampton is a small pleasant town, it has a few historical sites to visit and some rather up-market gift shops which I enjoyed looking round. We anchored in the bay beside the public docks, coming on to the jetties for the last week to complete our provisioning and to boast up our batteries.

As usual we had our moments.

Firstly we got rammed by a power boat in the dark whilst on anchor. The motor boat had been out for an evenings fishing and was manovering back into his berth, when he turned into us. This resulted in a big bang, broken stantion and a rude awaking for us asleep in the cabin below. The owner was very apologetic and when he saw two, old fogies appear on deck, very concerned in case we were going to keel over with the shock. We assured him we were fine and he later replaced the stantion he had damaged.

Then we had the mystery of the outboard motor that got water in to its fuel tank. Our outboard for the dinghy is old and on its last legs, but for some time now it has been working well. So we were surprised to find it wouldn’tstart one morning. Graham did the usual, plugs, cleaned the carburettor, no go. We had just about decided it had really died this time when Graham noticed the fuel appeared very light coloured. Guess what. Somehow water had got into the fuel tank, sunk to the bottom and we were trying to fire the engine on water. We still don’t know how this happened.

Finally we decided to pick up our anchor and take a berth on the public docks, not so. Our anchor was well and truly bedded in, or so we thought.

Whilst at the boat show at Annapolis we had bought a large new anchor, we had been advised to get the largest suitable for our size boat, they forgot to mention the size of our windless which struggled to lift it normally.

We fastened the anchor chain on to a cleat on the boat, positioned the boat directly over the anchor and used the boat engine to slowly lift the anchor. As the anchor came up to the surface of the water we saw why. We had fouled the anchor on a hawser (a two inch steel cable) no wonder the windless couldn’t lift it. We managed to disentangle ourselves from the cable and went on to the public docks.

Well that’s 3 things that have gone wrong we won’t have another, said I. WRONG.

Provisioned up ready for the off, we waited for the Caribbean 1500 rally to give the go ahead to leave Hampton. They had so far cancelled the start for a further two days. The weather seemed OK but we decided to take their advice as we hoped they had more in depth weather information. We were getting quite nervous and wanting to get off, when we found that our Sat. phone wouldn’t download E mails to the computer. This was a serious blow. All the messages you send whilst we are at sea come via this method and more importantly so does our weather files. After a day of frantic activity we went to bed not happy bunnies. Thankfully the following morning we were back on line but it did make Graham put in a back up system with our friend Peter, who had agreed to be our shore base support in case it happened again. Thankfully it never did during the passage.

We left Hampton on the 8th November, temperature 10c bracing autumn morning to sail into a fog bank at the mouth of the bay. I won’t cover the passage as we sent daily logs to our web site www.wingandaprayer.co.uk  that covers our time on the water. Except to say it was a challenging trip.

We arrived in Puerto Rico where the temperature of over 30c, on the 21st November after 13 days at sea.

But that is not the end. We then had our little moment with customs and Immigration. (US Homeland Security) Puerto Rico is a US state.

The rule is on entering into a country, you ring up the office and tell them you have arrived and they then come and visit the boat or ask you to visit them.  Until then you are not legally in the country.

The first day we were just too tired to bother. Day 2 we booked our flights on the internet and found we needed to collect our tickets from the airport.
So Day 3 Graham decided we would hire a car collect our air tickets and at the same time sort out customs and immigration at the airport. Not the way to do it.

We collected our tickets and then went over to Immigration. Oh dear what a confusion. We had thrown a spanner in the works. People arriving at Immigration in an airport usually arrive by air. It took a lot of explaining until they realised what we had done. Then they inquired if we had phoned in. NO! Where is your boat?  Where have you come from? Why did you not go to Fajardo customs and immigration? With a few white lies such as we had only just got in and needed to pick up tickets to go home, they at last got the picture. They were confused but give them their due very polite. Old age does have its advantages. We had put them in a difficult position. We were not legally in the country and as such should not be there, but as we had presented ourselves to them they couldn’t send us away. After long phone calls to the official at Fajardo, (who wasn’t pleased and gave Graham a talking to insisting we present ourselves to her before close at 5pm) we were processed and then sent to customs to hand in our customs form. Here again the lady thought Graham was fooling and having a joke with her when she asked which flight and we tried to explain we had come by boat. It took an official from immigration to explain. As we left we heard her say to a queue of passengers just off a flight. If anyone of you came by boat, tell me now. We quietly left the airport and on our way back went to the office in Fajardo. Thankfully the lady who had spoken to Graham had left and the lady we spoke to was very pleasant to us.

Since then we have noticed the customs lady down at the marina each morning she is definitely not letting another boat get through. We haven’t introduced ourselves. Just kept our heads down. After all we are legal now and looking forward to being home for Christmas.

Graham & Joy

Categories: Travels
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