30 51.036 'N:81 28.02'W

Fun times with Customs and Border Protection

We had a couple of very windy days in the Charleston anchorage before the winds died down enough for us to jump out into the ocean again for the 25-hour passage to Fernandina Beach, FL.  

The tides run very strong at Charleston and it can be very beneficial to catch an outgoing tide when transiting the inlet to the ocean.  Paul spent some time figuring out the best timing for us to catch an outgoing tide at Charleston and an incoming tide at the St. Mary's inlet for our arrival at Fernandina Beach.    We departed Charleston on 

Nov 16 at 09:30 and got a big flush out the channel!    

The seas were comfortable and we did some sailing and motor-sailing during the morning hours until early afternoon when the winds died off completely and we ended up running by engine only for the rest of the trip.

We spotted lots of dolphins and a couple of large sea turtles.   Another bonus on this passage was the help we got from the full moon to light our way.  Paul loves boating at night......me, not so much so anytime there is a full moon I'm much happier!

As we passed the Savannah, GA inlet there were at least 15 giant cargo ships anchored outside waiting their turn to enter the inlet.  We could go inside where they were anchored, outside where they were anchored, or, what the heck.....we'll go right through the middle of them!   That sounds bad but they were each anchored about a mile apart.   I can say we got a very good look at some of them!

Early in the morning we had the sea buoy for the St. Mary's inlet in sight and again we were able to ride the tide into Fernandina Beach.   We headed for the Fernandina City Marina to get some fuel and to do our customs and border protection form 1300 check-in.   Did I mention that was going pretty well?    Perhaps I spoke a little too soon!

While Paul was fueling the boat, I started making phone calls to customs.  First call was to Fernandina Beach but the office was closed for the weekend.   Ok, the next closest office was Jacksonville so I called them.   The officer I spoke with there was very nice but she had no idea how to proceed.  She took my info and said she would call back with instructions.   True to her word, she called back within 15 minutes and said we needed to call the St. Augustine office at Noon as they were the only office open on Saturday.  They would be able to help us.

I told her that our intention was to only take on fuel then proceed north to St. Mary's, GA and asked if it would be better for us to file our entry there?   She said no and that we needed to "sit tight" until we talked to an officer in St. Augustine.  Great, we are at a fuel dock, not sure we can just sit tight!  It was only 10 AM!   This is where I give the dock hands at the Fernandina City Marina a big high five!  They said we could stay on the dock until noon no problem!  At noon I called St. Augustine and this is where things took a little turn for the worse.  The officer was not happy with me for calling him instead of Fernandina (even though I told him I did call them and they were closed), he said we were very bad planners for arriving when we did and I could go on and on.  His temperament was rude and aggressive and I thought I better put him on speaker so Paul could hear the conversation as well.   Paul only listened to about 10 words out of the guy's mouth before he took over!   The officer continued to berate us but said that Jacksonville should handle our clearance.  Paul reminded him that we were only trying to follow the rules and we called him because we had been instructed by Jacksonville to do so.  Finally, the officer told us to wait 30 minutes then to phone Jacksonville back as he would have them straightened out by then.  The dock hands swung by to see how things were going and after hearing our story said we could hang out until 4pm if needed!  So great!

After about 20 minutes the St. Augustine officer called us back, he asked if we had called Jacksonville back yet.  We said no as you told us to wait 30 minutes and it's only been 20 minutes.  At that point his whole demeanor changed.  It was like talking to a different person.  He was actually nice!   He gave us his email address but said we needed to phone the Miami office to let them know we were here and to make sure they would be ok with him processing our forms.    Miami?   Ok... in the continuing saga of doing what we were told, we phoned Miami.   After another discussion with yet another officer we were told to send our forms to the St. Augustine officer and ask him to process them.  Whew!  We sent the forms and then waited patiently for officer Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to get back to us.  Well, about 2.5 hours later, with an hour and a half to spare on our 4pm deadline at the dock we were underway again with our approved forms in hand!  Total of 5.5 hours to report in. Jeez.... This whole travelling by Canadian boat in USA is beyond logic when it come to bureaucracy. No office of the homeland security (CBP) has the same process or rule adherence, none of them! If you crossed the border in your 40 foot RV it would be welcome to the USA, have a great winter! In a boat it defies explanation how completely fooked up it is. Any of our USA friends who think Bahamas immigration process is not up to par have little concept of how rude and ignoant many of the USA CBP officers can be! That said about 75% are very helpful, apologetic and reasonable. The other 25% should be posted to Fargo North Dakota to finish their careers.

We headed for Cumberland Island to meet up with the Dagny crew.  Normally we would be ready for a nap after a 25-hour passage, but not this day!   The CBP had managed to wind us up so a little decompression session was in order with the Dagny crew before we hit the wall!

We picked up a hay bale on our prop when sitting at the dock in Fernandina which we couldn't seem to shake so the next morning Paul waited for slack tide and donned his wet suit, weight belt and hooka set-up to dive into the very murky water to clear the prop (after he could find it!)    

There was some breezy weather headed our way so we decided to move to a more protected spot.  This would allow us to do a little more exploring on the island too!    Our trip was delayed a bit by an inbound nuclear attack submarine.  The channel basically gets shut down by the navy police while the sub transits the channel and docks.  We spent about an hour bobbing around waiting for the all clear.  

We spent three days anchored at Plum Orchard, Cumberland Island, home of the Carnegie family historical refuge .   The Dagny crew was with us and together we toured the mansion and enjoyed the trails!   Huge live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss and several kinds of palm trees line the trails making for a shady jungle like feel.  The wild horses were abundant and grazing the grounds as we walked by.  They are not the least bit bothered by people walking past them and just slowly move away if you step a little too close. We spotted one armadillo in the bush but that was it for the wildlife.

Next up, we will move to St. Mary's, GA.  Our friends Bruce and Terry on SV Charisma/ Fortuna gave us a heads up that CBP was not so easy to deal with there either and to expect to have to rent a car to drive to Brunswick, GA to do our Form 1300 check-in in person.  What?   Ugh, didn't think it could get much worse than the last check-in.