Sea Changes Sailing with Dan and Allyson: Turks and Caicos, Immigration and Customs

After 3 days sailing we arrived mid afternoon on New Years Day. It took us longer than expected to get through the Sandbore channel to Sapodilla Bay because we had to turn off the engine and tack through the reefs. Our alternator had fallen to pieces and the noise was incredible. We thought the whole engine had shit the bed. Luckily we had about 10 kts of wind. We could have been left floating at the mouth of the harbor with no way in in lighter winds.

We struggled a little with customs and immigration. First off—Provo-Radio has some kind of radar and began hailing us 10 miles out from Provo. They took all of our information over the radio which was a little disconcerting as none of our books said anything about them. It felt like a very public way to give semi-private information.

The following day we walked through a construction site, then down a dirt road and over to the South dock to clear in. It was a holiday weekend so immigration was not there and we were told to return on Monday. Monday we were told to head into town to the main office. We tried Bob’s marina and the immigration official there would not give us a ride to the main office. So we were forced to take a jitney. We went from the immigration office to the office of the treasury then back to the immigration office. Jumping through hoops just to stay for 14 days in a country and $200 later we were cleared.

The anchorage was pretty rolly, but beautiful. We ended us dropping a second anchor to keep our stern to the swell rather than point into the wind.

We had to anchor as close as possible to cut down on the rolling... still didn't help much.

A lot of vacation rentals on this beach. It was pretty common to see a kid fly by on a paddle board amazed how fast he was moving without having to put a paddle in the water. The true test came when they turned around and had to head back into 25kts. I only had to tow one paddle boarder back in.