Immigration Agitation

In the post about our arrival in the Bahamas I wrote about how the immigration official refused to give us more than 60 days in the Bahamas. At the time he said we could just renew it if we wanted to stay longer. Easier said than done. The time for renewal happened to land right around the holidays. George found instructions for requesting a renewal online and he submitted it in mid-December. After receiving a brief response saying the request was received and he should receive an answer in 7 business days he heard nothing more. He sent emails, he made calls, and the only responses he received were filled with conflicting advise or transfers to numbers that no one answered. We finally decided to abandon the electronic renewal and attempt an in-person renewal. (We hadn’t done that before because one of the people at immigration had told George that once he made the electronic request he should not attempt an in-person renewal.) 

Yesterday George spoke with a helpful man named Oral at the Long Island Tourism Office who said he would arrange for a customs official—there are no immigration officials on Long Island—to come to the tourism office and complete the renewal. He gave us an appointment for noon today. We dinghied ashore this morning and walked the mile to the tourism office.  Oral called the customs official who said he was too busy and couldn’t come, maybe he could come tomorrow. George and I were both afraid that the customs official would be too busy again tomorrow and we didn’t want to take the risk. Time is getting short and another holiday weekend is approaching. We tried to rent a car to drive to the airport where the customs official works but there was no one at the car rental facility. After George made more calls and left more messages with immigration officials we decided to sail to the northern end of Long Island and, in the morning, get a taxi to the airport to meet with the customs official. We rushed to get under way so we could make it by sundown. While we were underway George finally received a call back from someone in immigration who said they are backlogged and haven’t yet processed our request. As long as we submitted the request before our 60 days was up we would be okay. We will eventually get a response by email. We are relieved that it seems to have finally worked out but very frustrated that it had to be this hard. If the immigration official in Spanish Wells had given us more time to begin with we wouldn’t have had so much aggravation and they would wouldn’t have had our request add to their backlog. 

On a more positive note, we are partway to Conception Island and plan to sail there tomorrow. It is a beautiful island that is part of the Bahamas Land and Sea Park and does not have a cell phone tower. While we are there we will be off the grid. 

Sailing to Hog Cay at the northern end of Long Island.