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Please don't misinterpret my intent.
I believe every government has the right and obligation to monitor and control aliens entering and leaving it's country. I dutifully dinghy in to the customs/immigration office(s) to clear in and clear out and pay the required fees for the privilege of my wife and I visiting some extremely beautiful and interesting destinations. No problem, although it can knock as much as half a day off one's cruising schedule (more of concern to charterers).
My concern about APIS is that it is a system designed for comercial mass carriers (airlines and cruise ships) that is being applied to small yachts with typically two persons aboard, maybe a few more if it's a charter.
Here's the opening quote from the Caribbean Compass article on APIS:
On August 11th, Penny Tyas wrote to yachtbuddy.com: "This morning a cruising yachtsman who arrived in [Antigua] waters some two weeks ago for repairs and relaxation, went to clear out prior to his departure tomorrow for islands south. Customs clearance went according to plan, but he was informed that he would have to come back in the afternoon to clear Immigration, and he was given a form to complete.
"This afternoon he presented himself with all his documentation and the completed form, but then learned that the form was no longer sufficient, and since July 31st it has become a requirement to complete an Advance Passenger Information System form on-line.
"The frustrated Captain was left no choice but to arrange to go back a third time to Immigration in order to get the required clearance to leave the country."
Other visiting yacht skippers reported similar experiences in Antigua.
Any skipper who's cleared in or out during the High Season will recognize a disaster in the making! The article concludes,
...demanding API from yachts in the Eastern Caribbean is unlikely to help the war on terror, strict enforcement and thorough follow-up would be an additional burden on law-enforcement agencies in the countries involved, and it is quite likely to harm the sub-region's valuable yacht-tourism industry.As Penny Tyas wrote from Antigua, "How is it that in a country relying so heavily on tourism, a large part of which is wrapped up in the yachting industry, there is so little effort put in by government bodies to relieve the pressures of bureaucracy? How can we continue to promote Antigua as a superior yachting destination when Captains are confronted by bureaucratic procedures that cannot be anticipated or investigated and cannot be practically upheld? If a person cannot even leave the country without bureaucratic headaches, how can we possibly persuade him to return?"
Several of the CARICOM islands had been making significant progress in standardizing and simplifying the confusingly different requirements for yachts entering and leaving their waters, in the realization that yachting tourism is an important and growing sector of their local economies. APIS is a giant step in the wrong direction. It adds nothing significant to the existing ability of the islands to control their borders, yet it places heavy and possibly impossible requirements on yachters.
Chris Doyle, author of the popular Caribbean cruising guides, has this to say:
If this legislation is allowed to stand without modification ...it will be immensely damaging to the entire Caribbean yachting industry. Hampering the free movement of yachts with a mass of red tape will make the Caribbean way less attractive to visitors, both those cruising on their own boats and those who fly in to charter a boat here. In the long term,
as the news gets out, it will mean fewer yachts and fewer yachting visitors, and the bareboat charter industry, always struggling, will find it very hard to manage.
Chuck suggests that if cruisers don't like it, they shouldn't go to those islands. Chuck, I think that is what will happen, at least to some extent. But for a cruising couple, having invested the time, money and considerable effort to sail their boat to the eastern Caribbean, or for charterers on a "dream vacation", that would sure limit the fun of exploration.
The officials responsible for promoting tourism on these islands should be very, very concerned.
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