Covid test requirement days after arrival

[yelkenli]

For any countries, like the Bahamas, that require a covid test several days after entry, are there any exemptions for sailors? Sailors on a boat have little, but not zero, interaction with the public. Also, if the sailors are a day's sail away from a test location, this can really wreck an itinerary.


A second question is what happens if we miss getting the test on that prescribed day or at all? Has anyone run into that problem?

[tkeithlu]

I doubt very much that you are going to find an exception. The impossbility of writing a law that covers all situations is why law officers have discretion. I suppose that you could carry your own tests and hope that they would accept them (another "I doubt"), but probably your only recourse is to ask where you can get a test when you check in.

[dougweibel]

The Bahamas is being pretty lenient with timing of post-arrival tests for cruisers. The current requirement is a test on the fifth day. If you are in transit to an island with a testing location on the fifth day then you can just state that on your arrival and get the test on the 6th or 7th day as the case may be.

This is generally true for the test you need prior to arrival as well. If for example you sail from Newport down to the Bahamas you will not arrive in the validity window of the test. However, they will allow extra days if you can reasonably show you were at sea. if you want to claim it took you five days to sail from Florida to Bimini this exemption is not going to work. Not leaving Florida for four days because you are waiting on better weather and don't want to bother getting a new test is not the same as being at sea.

They will not accept your own test, even the proctored variety, for the post arrival test.

[yelkenli]

Thanks for the comments.

I received guidance from the tourism ministry that if we are not in a population center, we don't have to get a test. We have to get tested immediately upon entering a population center. One of the major bareboat charter companies provided the same response. Though I don't see this written in their materials.



In our case, we are flying into a population center, then taking a bareboat charter.

[yelkenli]

And it looks like the Day 5 requirement was retired. I was hoping for this. This pandemic keeps things moving.