T&T: Providing Advise

[Mike Maurice]

Some observations about trying to help other people with their 
questions. Regulatory issues are subject to frequent changes. For 
instance, the recent questions about pets imported into foreign 
countries. That's right, the the correct phrasing is "importing". If you 
want to know what the regs are the correct way to find out is to consult 
the web using words like: pets, importing and the name of the country 
you are interested in, in the search engine. What you are looking for is 
the official web site of the country of interest. Most countries, 
including small islands in the Pacific have such web sites.

Because of the avian bird flu problem, which is now a world wide issue, 
the problems of carrying a bird of any kind aboard your boat, even as a 
pet, may change as fast as the weather. In other words, consulting a 
forum may be the second best way of determining the regulations. There 
is no harm in getting feedback from forum members, but unless one of 
them is in fact quoting current regs, they may be providing you with 
outdated info, even though they have no intention of doing so. In that 
regard, any "old" information may be out of date and it pays to check 
sometime just before departure.

There are similar problems with Passports and Visas. The details of 
getting, renewing, replacing, etc. constitute an entire semester of 
study. And even if you know what the details were a year ago, it pays to 
check it out and verify what has changed, since you can be sure that 
something has. Before asking forum members about regs, it will pay 
dividends to study the web if for no other reason than to be able to ask 
precise and intelligent questions.

For instance, the Web sites indicate you can get tourist visas to China 
with one or two time entries. These are easy to get. If you want a 
multiple entry visa, you have to get a Business version. To get that you 
have to have an invitation. No invitation, you can't get back into China 
the 3rd time. That doesn't make sense does it? This is where "local 
knowledge" comes in.

After using up your 2 time entries, you apply for a third one, which 
will generally take a day or so(there is a lot more to this than this, 
but that's another story). Once you have had the 3rd entry and used it, 
you are eligible to get a multiple entry visa good for a whole year. You 
won't need the invitation; go figure. This last bit of info is not on 
the web sites, as near as I can tell. Don't go thinking that the China 
scenario that I have written here is the whole story. Which brings me 
the pertinent point. I would not rely on my description of how to do all 
this; for I would refer you to a full time professional to keep you out 
of trouble, like visa4you.net, which I posted earlier.

One last thing, have you checked the expiration date on your passport? 
If it has less than 6 months to run, it is almost useless except to get 
you back into your home country. You will find references to this 
"gotcha" all over the web.

Regards,
Mike
_____________________________________
Capt. Mike Maurice
Beaverton Oregon(Near Portland)