No Clearance, No Passport & Going to Trinidad

[captain58sailin]

Just out of curiosity; how much cocaine is worth $48,000,000 ? Is that whole sale or retail?

[hblask]

I keep reading this thread hoping OP will come back and clear up some of the extremely valid questions you guys are asking. I seriously hope they come back, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Blue Stocking]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

Just out of curiosity; how much cocaine is worth $48,000,000 ? Is that whole sale or retail?

Really don't want to hi-jack this thread which is very interesting.
You can read all the details that I referred to by going to Royal Gazette.bm. Ties to Russian Mafia, the whole bit.

[captain58sailin]

It was just a tongue in cheek question.

[Celestialsailor]

One thing that has not been mentioned. I don't know of too many people who do not take copies of all their paperwork...passports, Zarps, birth certificates and so on. It does seem odd this post.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

Just out of curiosity; how much cocaine is worth $48,000,000 ? Is that whole sale or retail?

They usually go by street value per gram. That way it looks like a huge bust. So some where in the hood of 500 kilos.
Not that I would know anything about that trade...

[John A]

Ya just gotta love the google search engine!

http://www.havocscope.com/black-market-prices/cocaine-prices/

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

It was just a tongue in cheek question.

The numbers are usually like a fishing story.

Makes getting tax dollars easier.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by John A

Ya just gotta love the google search engine!

http://www.havocscope.com/black-market-prices/cocaine-prices/

Browse her Pics
A new hot girl joins every minute.

HEH!

Saw the pic...ture first and thought the heading had a T or two in in it till I got refocused.

What a wonderful resource.

You even beat Gord!

PS. I think this is a thread from the girlfriend of the guy from californicia that told us about the dingy theft. IMO

[Davinia]

My embassy is starting the process for my new passport but I still dont have much information about the inmigration office or customs. I am glad my questions are interesting, I hope there would be more answerds.... By the way I was in
Iles de Salut, French Guayana but I have not embassy to do my new passport. We ask arround if we needed to clear in and they told us that since we are Europeans we dont need so we didnt.

Does anybody know if we should have done it anyway?

The reason for asking this is that now we can say that we come from French Guayana but we dont know if that is still a problem...

Thanks for all the helpful coments. I will give more information as soon as I have.

[Davinia]

So.... this is what happened.
Once in Chaguaramas (Trinidad) we decided to present ourselves in immigration. We told them all the truth ( we got my passport stolen in Brasil, we did not have the clear in or out from there) avoiding mentioning the stop in French Guayana. One of the officers was very annoyed and tense with our case and did not find the story very clear, but the main officer in charge did, and perhaps did not want to deal with all that any longer or create more trouble. After 1 hour of interrogatory they clear us in. I had to return there once I had the forms from my embassy proving my passport was on the way. And they let us stay here for 1 month.

My conclusions are, it is not worthit to not do the clearance since this can give you a lot of worries. At least here in the Caribbean islands inmigration are quite lay back and they are not too hard with these kind of cases( we have heard of other vessels arriving here with similar situation), find out good before about the destination you are going and do not stop in the beach of Mucuripe, Fortaleza, Brazil. Every sailing boat we have meet on our way that has stop there got stolen the first night that arrived there, some even with guns and while they where sleeping. It is DANGEROUS!

[SVTatia]

I am glad things have worked out.

But we are still in the dark, so it begs the question:
Why did you not resolve this problem in Brazil, and why did you run away without paying, and paying for what?

[Selected Risks]

Hello everyone. Very interesting thread. I found it whilst trying to figure out a devious plan for getting my boat out of South Africa without clearance (to be honest). I am a British citizen and went to SA by air to buy a flicka 20 which I intend to sail over to the carribean. It is registered in SA, but they are very strict on letting boats of 20ft leave (unless they are visiting of course). They do not understand that the Flicka20 is more than capable to handle the big ocean. Here locals have to have lots of safety equipment and all manor of sailing qualifications before they can clear out. All I want to do is get out of here. Does anyone know a loop hole. I'm not sure how the customs thing works. Perhaps I could get a British registration and pretend i was visiting, but then would the SA customs nab me when I try to clear out? Can anyone advise? Should i post this somewhere else (sorry, I'm new).

[hellosailor]

A fallen log can handle the ocean, the authorities are concerned about your judgement and skills not so much the boat. Taking something that small that far raises red flags to them. Since there are currently 10 for sale in the US on Yachtworld laone, from 15-28k with a typical price of $20,000...one has to wonder why you HAD to go to the end of the world to buy that one, considering where you want to take it.

So you can sneak out and try to claim asylum or "I made a wrong turn and got lost" at whatever vague destination you plan to make, or you can pack it up in a cargo cube and legally SHIP it via ocean freight.

Or perhaps you can so something really heinious and get the authorities to simple expel you, along with your boat, rather than asking for an exit permit? RUn up some traffic violations, get expelled as an undesibrable alien?

Best way not to get arrested and have the boat seized, is to ask the authorites (UK & SA) what options you might have.

[jgbrown]

Still odd. I guess people make strange choices under pressure, I guess I can see why the choice was made, even if it wasn't a great one, as once a bureaucracy is notified of an issue you can't UN-notify them, and there are so many stories of coming to grief from being honest with them.


Fwiw, when some idiot stole my license plate in Guatemala the first thing I did was get a letter from the chief of police, signed and dated and stamped. With his phone number added. Good enough at every other border except one... that one took me an entire day to clear and almost all my money in bribes. I wondered after that if life might have been easier If I'd kept my fat yap shut.