Bahamas Health Visa and Cruising Permit

Although we aren’t yet sure if we are heading out tomorrow evening or Sunday morning, we decided to get started on the documentation the Bahamas requires for us to enter the country. In prior years we did not have to submit any documents prior to our arrival. We would just arrive in a port of entry, hoist our quarantine flag, meet with someone from the Customs and Immigration office, show our documents and fill out a few forms, pay the fee for a cruising permit in cash, and that would be it. The whole process took about 1/2 hour. Two things have changed since we last visited the Bahamas: 1–The Covid pandemic. Since the onset of the pandemic, the Bahamas has taken several measures to prevent the spread throughout the country. Currently the country requires visitors to obtain a Travel Health Visa before entering. Visitors who are vaccinated must submit proof of vaccination plus proof of a negative PCR or rapid Covid test. The application and documents are submitted electronically and within 24 hours (less than an hour in our case) an email is sent approving the Visa and asking for payment of $40.00 for health insurance. 2–The cruising permit application and payment are now done electronically prior to your arrival in the Bahamas. George and I have spent most of today working on this documentation. We started by taking the rapid Covid tests that we purchased from a lab called eMed. A trained eMed representative observed each of us taking the test and then issued official-looking reports that we uploaded with our Travel Health Visa applications. Then George spent several hours working on the cruising permit application. The Bahamas calls it their Click2Clear program. They have a YouTube video explaining the process which George watched a few times. The Bahamas requests the same information they have in the past but instead of just showing someone the documentation for the boat, the documentation has to be scanned and uploaded to the site. This is repeated with several other forms of documentation. In any case, it is finally done and we have our cruising permit and have paid the required $600 fee. When we enter the Bahamas all we have to do is show the permit to the Customs and Immigration officer when he boards the boat, he will stamp the form and we will be done. George had seen a recommendation that it helps to have a printer on your boat. Before we left home he ordered a wireless printer that does not require a WiFi network. He has already printed our Travel and Health Visas as well as the cruising permit. We now have a just a few chores to finish before we go. We expect to hear soon from our weather guru, Chris, on the best time for us to depart. 

Awaiting the results of the rapid Covid test. 

Wireless printer.