[PUP] Australian Customs versus American Sailors

[Georgs Kolesnikovs]

Email forwarded from Lloyd Kubis, a Canadian who spends part of the 
year in Australia:

Read the attached --- Australia has gotten a very bad reputation for 
visiting yachties as a result of cases like the attached!! It's too 
bad as there is great cruising and lots of stuff to see, but being so 
large it takes time!

My friend , a Canadian, who bought my old 48ft Krogen Whaleback had 
a similar experience. He visited the Aussie embassy in NZ where he 
had cruised to from Singapore, and they gave him a cruising permit 
for 12 months for OZ and told him there would be no problem to renew 
it as he needed time to do major work on the boat and also needed 
time to sail around OZ.
  As the expiry date neared he went to the local Customs office, who 
had no problem with him extending but it was conditional on getting 
an extension on their visiting visa issued by immigration. So I took 
them to the local immigration office and after a somewhat rude 
reception they turned him down demanding that he leave Australia at 
the end of his visa. Since this was impossible; as he needed time to 
sail the 4000 Kms to Darwin to leave OZ he asked for an extension of 
about 4 months as it would take him that long to get there from my 
place. They refused but offered initially a 2 month extension. After 
a somewhat lengthy negotiation which included assistance from the 
Marine section of Customs who were supportive of my friend they 
finally got it up to about 4 months and he was able to get to Darwin 
and out of OZ with his boat!!
The local office refused to honor the committment made by their own 
embassy in NZ so I suppose the moral of the story is to get in 
writing or just bypass OZ which quite a few yachties are doing!!

Cheers!
Lloyd

<http://www.thecoastalpassage.com/manzaris.html>http://www.thecoastalpassage.com/manzaris.html