Customs, Immigration, Quarantine – Episode 3 & 4

Friday 15 May, 10.10pm (anchored at Lenakel)

We moved Chimere closer in this morning and with the wind and swell having died down it is certainly more comfortable.

We started transporting water from a communal tap ashore to fill up Chimere’s empty tanks today and in the course of the days activities caught up with the nice customs man – we are on first name terms now. When I went to his office this morning he said, hello Robert. I now know his name to be Yowl. (not sure of the spelling, but it sounds like Howl)

Yowl came out to the boat for 3 minutes, tops, had a quick look around, saw the optical equipment and dozens of boxes and seemed more than satisfied. So ended Episode 3. We now have Quarantine to finalise. I mentioned this to Yowl and he said, don’t worry about it now if you don’t have time, do it in Pt Vila when you are there in 2 weeks time. No worries I said.

When I caught up with Martin later in the day he said, we have an appointment with quarantine tomorrow morning at 9:00am, on the beach, to fill out the forms. So assuming that all goes off well we can hopefully close the book on the paperwork – for a time anyway.

It was market day in Lenekal, so when in Rome … We now have all manner of tropical fruits and vegies aboard – but I must say, I drew the line at buying a fruit bat. Fruit, yes, but when it’s also a bat, no. It was so cute, and if I explain any more I think I’ll have to issue another warning for children, and others easily shocked, to look away.

The big event today, apart from finally being able to scrub the deck, was the arrival of Andrew, my brother and joint owner in the boat. His work commitments have prevented him from doing much sailing, but he has done a mammoth job in preparing Chimere for sea, and will be with us for the next 2 weeks as we work our way north to Pt Vila transporting the medical team as we go. In a sense Andrew has been with the voyage here, every step of the way. Most of the emails received aboard have come from him as he has tracked our movements, studied the weather charts and assessed the charts and our course on a day to day basis. He’s very pleased to now, finally be aboard.

The medical team came aboard late this afternoon, along with Andrew, for a cup of tea and it was great to see the excitement and anticipation. The first clinic is tomorrow. As a result, I need to be getting to bed. Martin, Will, Kathy and I went to a local Talent Concert tonight and my batteries are running low.

Smooth sea, fair breeze and I wish this swell would stop.

Rob

4 thoughts on “Customs, Immigration, Quarantine – Episode 3 & 4”

  1. Hi Crew,
    Glad you’ve made the journey safely!
    Mostly wanted to say thankyou to Rob for your very entertaining ships’ log, well done!
    Also wanted to thankyou for keeping Martin safe and apparently very well fed and entertained.
    Keep up the good work and I’ll meet whoever is aboard for the middle tour,
    love from Isabel.

  2. Hi Isabel,

    great to hear from you. Martin left us yesterday on the taxi-ute (don’t know what the passengers do when it rains – I know the driver doesn’t get wet!!) and he’ll be with you in a few short hours. What a great crew member – a wealth of experience and information and skills. Tell him we just caught a Spanish Mackeral. 1.35m long and around 35kg. Very heavy to lift aboard, finally got the gaff out.

    We are going into Pt Resolution now, and Bob is having his afternoon nap…

    Love to all and thanks for the comment.

    Rob

  3. Hey guys.
    Just wanted to say that I think the fruit bat would have made an EXCELLENT addition to the boat. You could tie its foot to a long piece of string and let it fly around keeping birds off the boat.
    Not to mention the tourist trade!

    Big love
    – james

  4. Now James,
    I think you should stick to your studies … your imagination is running away with you … why would we need a fruit bat to keep the birds away when we’ve got a 12 foot long python …

    Love to mum

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