13/5/2011
Easter Monday in St Martin, and everything is closed… even customs! Mary and I decided not to wait, but to use a little 6hr NE window on Tuesday to push on to St Barts, from where we would be able to make for St Kitts in the prevailing SE which would follow . It proved to be a good call, and we anchored in Colombier Bay, and dinghied round to Customs in Gustavia, who to our surprise, were open!
We cleared in and out, confirmed the next day’s weather, and set off for St Kitts the next morning. The winds were about 25knots and we had a wet, wild, and bouncy 25mile crossing. We had hoped to find a little shelter and relief around the back of the island for the 13nm up to Port Zante. Fat chance!! Yes, the seas got a little lower, but the winds wrapped over and around the mountains, getting up to 35knots at times on the nose! It was a long and slow crawl for the last 13miles, before we could drop sails and anchor in the lee of two cruise liners at Basseterre. I went ashore by dinghy and negotiated two days in the Marina, for a bit of R & R, as the anchorage was a washing machine.
The town is quite attractive, and Port Zante is a purpose built mall and Duty Free complex aimed at cruise liners. We were able to top up with diesel and provisions, and eat one of the worst little rip off lunches ever, in a little restaurant overlooking “The Circus”, based on Piccadilly Circus.
Once again, we experienced a common Customs and Immigration problem. With few exceptions, they are all fully qualified BA’S…. (as in Bad Attitude!) It seems to us, that around the world, these officials get the job based on their BA qualification, rather than their HR skills or efficiencies! Indeed, some of these folk have upgraded their BA’S to MBA’S…. (Moerse Bad Attitude), and even the occasional MFBA!
Two days after checking in, a quick look at the weather picture, indicated that it would be better to depart St Kitts/Nevis on day 8, rather than day 7, as had been entered on my clearance form when checking in. As a courtesy, we popped in to customs to advise them of our plan to leave one day later. Not a big deal we thought, given that we would have been give up to 6 months with our UK passports, if we had so requested. “No, No, No!’ says the MBA Customs lady. You now have to go to the Office of National Security, to apply for a Visa extension. I tried to reason with her, by asking if she would have given me a month, two days earlier, if I had asked for a month. “Yes”, but you said you would be leaving in a week!” ‘About a week” I said. The form says a week, so you have to go to National Security now. Clearly she was making a push for her Phd. MFBA!
So off we go across town , to join yet another queue, of illegal’s, to request a one day visa extension, for which we had to fill in forms in triplicate, and pay a further admin fee, justifying our reasons…Bad weather ! By 10.30 am all forms were filled in, and we were told that Mr Benjamin was out for lunch, and we would have to come back this afternoon, or tomorrow. Given that it was only 10.30am, I expressed my frustration at all this “bullshit for a one day extension for bad weather” quite loudly …Loudly enough for Mr Benjamin to pop out of his office and demand to see my application and passport. He took one look, and said” No problem”, you can just change the date when you check out of Nevis!
We left Port Zante with a bit of our own BA, and anchored in White House Bay at the southern tip of St Kitts, close to a radically rigged super yacht called Maltese Falcon. From there it is only a short putt to Nevis, which in the pilot books, looked lovely.
We found an Island struggling to recover from Hurricane Lennie. All the palm trees along Pinney Beach were gone, and the anchorage was filled with mandatory mooring buoys (95% empty, at EC $ 58 for two nights (R180)) .Anchoring is not allowed, and the fees are collected by customs when you check out, based on the number of days in Nevis. The buoys are the governments attempt to make the cruisers help pay for hurricane damage, and from our observations, the cruisers have caste their votes by going elsewhere! We had a pleasant lunch of chicken wings and beer at Sunshine’s beach bar, but clearly business was poor with not many cruising patrons . Pictures on the walls, showed much happier days, with visitors such as Mel Gibson, John Travolte, Wesley Snipes, Morgan Freeman and a host of other celebrities enjoying Sunshines. Our waiter also asked if we knew Hershel Gibbs, as he was always here during the World Cup Cricket!
This visit only confirmed our view that the mandatory buoy rules do nothing to encourage business, and only serve to harm the local businesses even more! But why should we be surprised. Most governments are control driven, and totally fail to understand that marketing and capitalism is driven by freedom of choice! I have yet to find a customs or immigration official who understands that they are usually the visitors’ first contact with their country, and as such they should be welcoming, friendly and efficient! Has any Government employee in any country ever studied marketing?????? I doubt it, as that would imply a willingness to learn!
We cleared in and out, confirmed the next day’s weather, and set off for St Kitts the next morning. The winds were about 25knots and we had a wet, wild, and bouncy 25mile crossing. We had hoped to find a little shelter and relief around the back of the island for the 13nm up to Port Zante. Fat chance!! Yes, the seas got a little lower, but the winds wrapped over and around the mountains, getting up to 35knots at times on the nose! It was a long and slow crawl for the last 13miles, before we could drop sails and anchor in the lee of two cruise liners at Basseterre. I went ashore by dinghy and negotiated two days in the Marina, for a bit of R & R, as the anchorage was a washing machine.
The town is quite attractive, and Port Zante is a purpose built mall and Duty Free complex aimed at cruise liners. We were able to top up with diesel and provisions, and eat one of the worst little rip off lunches ever, in a little restaurant overlooking “The Circus”, based on Piccadilly Circus.
Once again, we experienced a common Customs and Immigration problem. With few exceptions, they are all fully qualified BA’S…. (as in Bad Attitude!) It seems to us, that around the world, these officials get the job based on their BA qualification, rather than their HR skills or efficiencies! Indeed, some of these folk have upgraded their BA’S to MBA’S…. (Moerse Bad Attitude), and even the occasional MFBA!
Two days after checking in, a quick look at the weather picture, indicated that it would be better to depart St Kitts/Nevis on day 8, rather than day 7, as had been entered on my clearance form when checking in. As a courtesy, we popped in to customs to advise them of our plan to leave one day later. Not a big deal we thought, given that we would have been give up to 6 months with our UK passports, if we had so requested. “No, No, No!’ says the MBA Customs lady. You now have to go to the Office of National Security, to apply for a Visa extension. I tried to reason with her, by asking if she would have given me a month, two days earlier, if I had asked for a month. “Yes”, but you said you would be leaving in a week!” ‘About a week” I said. The form says a week, so you have to go to National Security now. Clearly she was making a push for her Phd. MFBA!
So off we go across town , to join yet another queue, of illegal’s, to request a one day visa extension, for which we had to fill in forms in triplicate, and pay a further admin fee, justifying our reasons…Bad weather ! By 10.30 am all forms were filled in, and we were told that Mr Benjamin was out for lunch, and we would have to come back this afternoon, or tomorrow. Given that it was only 10.30am, I expressed my frustration at all this “bullshit for a one day extension for bad weather” quite loudly …Loudly enough for Mr Benjamin to pop out of his office and demand to see my application and passport. He took one look, and said” No problem”, you can just change the date when you check out of Nevis!
We left Port Zante with a bit of our own BA, and anchored in White House Bay at the southern tip of St Kitts, close to a radically rigged super yacht called Maltese Falcon. From there it is only a short putt to Nevis, which in the pilot books, looked lovely.
We found an Island struggling to recover from Hurricane Lennie. All the palm trees along Pinney Beach were gone, and the anchorage was filled with mandatory mooring buoys (95% empty, at EC $ 58 for two nights (R180)) .Anchoring is not allowed, and the fees are collected by customs when you check out, based on the number of days in Nevis. The buoys are the governments attempt to make the cruisers help pay for hurricane damage, and from our observations, the cruisers have caste their votes by going elsewhere! We had a pleasant lunch of chicken wings and beer at Sunshine’s beach bar, but clearly business was poor with not many cruising patrons . Pictures on the walls, showed much happier days, with visitors such as Mel Gibson, John Travolte, Wesley Snipes, Morgan Freeman and a host of other celebrities enjoying Sunshines. Our waiter also asked if we knew Hershel Gibbs, as he was always here during the World Cup Cricket!
This visit only confirmed our view that the mandatory buoy rules do nothing to encourage business, and only serve to harm the local businesses even more! But why should we be surprised. Most governments are control driven, and totally fail to understand that marketing and capitalism is driven by freedom of choice! I have yet to find a customs or immigration official who understands that they are usually the visitors’ first contact with their country, and as such they should be welcoming, friendly and efficient! Has any Government employee in any country ever studied marketing?????? I doubt it, as that would imply a willingness to learn!
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