The plan was to do a day sail from Trapani, Sicily to Pantellaria Island. It’s about an 80 mile sail so we got up bright and early with the sun. Once at Pantellaria we had to head around the island to get out of the Northerly swell. We stopped in a small cove, laid anchor, ate dinner and headed out for an overnight to Hammamet, Tunisia. We didn't stay because it was really bad holding for the anchor…lots of big boulders for the anchor to snag on. We did have a great sail for our last run and had to heave-to for a while since we arrived so early in the morning.
Once we were tied up to the dock we headed off to “clear in”. This involved the following:
1) Go to the Captains office to be told to go to the Police Dept.
2) Go to the Police Office, fill our paperwork, hand over your passports, answer a few questions.
3) Go to the Customs office, fill out more paperwork such as what items you have on your boat (guns, alcohol, computers, etc)
4) Take paper from Customs back to the Captains office to have a copy made
5) Get an escort by the Customs official back to your boat for “inspection”.
6) Once inside the boat you give out “presents” and he leaves
7) Later that day the plain clothed detective comes to your boat for his “presents” and all is good for Jay Sea Dee.
Then because we are leaving the boat here for seven months and they only give out six month cruising permits we must IMMOBILIZE the boat which requires an exchange of paperwork again but no “presents”.
I could not send this email from Tunisia so it had to wait until we were out of the country due to censorship of the internet there.
Everyone is very friendly and helpful. We head out to find an ATM to get our Tunisian Dinars. We get a quick lunch at an outdoor cafe and head back for naps.
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