Sopers Hole – more customs and Immigration.

Maryanne chooses now to read aloud "At the Mercy of the Sea", a true story of an out of season Caribbean Hurricane that took he lives of several sailors caught out at sea. Thankfully, our weather has been much kinder, but now I have more things to worry about (on top of how we might be treated in BVI customs and immigration)
[Kyle]This morning we needed to return to the BVI and check in at Sopers Hole. This was the only port of entry in the BVI that we had not yet used, so we had our fingers crossed for friendly staff. The sail was gorgeous and the area around Sopers Hole was absolutely stunning with high steep islands closely spaced. It reminded me in some ways of the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.

We found space at the customs and immigration dock to tie up Footprint. The first thing that greeted me as I entered Immigration was a cold, unblinking stare. Oh, Crap! The immigration woman was the same lady from Jost Van Dyke - the really mean one that complained we gave her a headache. She seemed to remember she didn’t like us, but was struggling to place us as we walked in. First, however, we needed to proceed through customs (the guy sat beside her). He was friendly but official and didn’t seem at all concerned that we would have been in the country for more than 30 days with Footprint. Charge: $15.50 for entrance for one more month. Stamp, stamp, done. Next: Immigration. The woman looked at Maryanne and said, “You’re the one with two passports aren’t you?” Maryanne smiled sweetly, said yes, and pointed out that she was using the passport that the “nice” lady suggested last time (so as not to cause any further “headache”). After a few moments of silence she gave us our passport stamps and we were declared free to go. Done. We made a sharp exit.

For the rest of the day we had lovely upwind sailing in flat seas tacking up the Sir Francis Drake Channel to our anchorage at Benures Bay, Norman Island.