We decided to take a dock at the nearby City Marina, being as it was quite reasonable according to their website and it is much either to be alongside with lots of boat jobs to do. We were up early and eventually got them on the radio to be assigned a hammerhead on the entrance to the marina. We got showered and changed and headed off to clear into the States. The customs building is just along the shoreline, but it is still a fair walk round by the road. We arrived into the four storey immaculate new building and remarked how things were different now from the sheds, broom cupboards and portacabins where customs officers are usually to be found at your average port. A fairly easy security search and up to the second floor. We approached the glass window to be told that we had broken the law by coming to the office without first telephoning Homeland Security before we first landed. Not a good start. Apparently we would need an arrival number from them before we could be cleared in. I had known we needed to telephone in with Homeland Security, but hadn’t quite realised the order of events, as it is quite normal for the captain to have to go immediately to clear in everywhere else.
Anyway, it seems they would let us off as it was a new system, but the officer dialled the number for me and pasted the received through the letter box in the bulletproof glass for me to report in. We were then kept on hold for literally 25 minutes. During this time a crew of a superyacht and another local guy came in and out. Whilst we were waiting another officer in full uniform and big boots came in and announced he’d just been on our boat! A little surprised when we hadn’t actually even told him our boat name that this had happened. Anyway, it seems that it was a different boat that he’d just been on, though apparently they had looked round Invincible too as we’d had our yellow Q flag up (to show we were not cleared in).
Eventually, we got through and only wishing to speak to the Master of the vessel, I handed the phone over to Kevin. He then gave our passport numbers, expiry, date of births, boat particulars etc. He was told off because we don’t have a US telephone number, however, it is still a puzzle to us how you are supposed to get one as you have to call them before you have even stepped ashore. Now we had our 15 digit arrival number we handed over our passports and I95 forms which we had just filled out to check in. When he handed them back we were told off again for not calling before we came in, which we duly apologised for. I asked for some clarification as reports on the internet are that you have to telephone Homeland Security as a foreign yacht when you move between ports too. We were told that was not necessary and once we had purchased our cruising permit from the 3rd floor we were clear for 6 months unless we left the country.
We duly bought our cruising permit for quite a reasonable $19 USD from the very friendly lady on the third floor. We walked away very relived that the check in was less of an ordeal than we thought. I think if we hadn’t been informed enough to know we needed a B1 visa and arrived without one it would have been a different story as I suspect many people have unwittingly done in the past being used to the visa waiver system used on arrival by air which is not applicable.
We went next to the local minimarket to try and get a US mobile but although they had some very large beer fridges they were limited on everything else. In fact we were a little disappointed to realise that we were a way from anywhere and were going to struggle without a car. We started to look into local bus travel on the internet in the afternoon so we could do some shopping for the things we needed. We also started to look on the internet for the boat supplies we were going to need as it didn’t look like we were going to find what we needed locally.
When we got back to the boat we found we already had more visitors, pleased to be here ourselves this time we went over to say hi. Our visitors turned out to be Cal, Marty and Siena who also have a Fountaine Pajot catamaran, though theirs is the slightly larger and older Venezia model. They were really friendly and invited us to join them for their Yacht Club’s raft up for the 4th July celebration on Saturday to watch the municipal fireworks display. Thrilled to be able to share such a big local celebration with some locals and sailors too, we immediately took their number and promised to call to arrange as soon as we had our phone.
Riviera City Marina
We treated ourselves to lunch at the Tiki bar at the marina in the afternoon and Kevin was rewarded with his first US burger. It was every bit as good as his expectations apparently being pure beef. I was not so happy with my dolphin fish (dorado) sandwich which came out made apparently made with fried bread. Even on a weekday lunch the place was busy and the service excellent and things like free refill on soft drinks and excellent prices was a welcome relief.
A different view for Invincible – Palm Beach skyline
A busy afternoon working out what we were going to be able to get where, which jobs we could do when and working out an itinerary to meet Alex & Sean on the 18th July in Orlando.
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