{"id":276,"date":"2021-04-14T23:54:03","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T23:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/?p=276"},"modified":"2021-04-14T23:54:07","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T23:54:07","slug":"276","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/?p=276","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Update on first day<\/strong>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Things seem to take a long time here&#8230; Having anchored (with difficulty, because the electric windlass wouldn\u2019t work&#8230; struggled with this and then resorted to using a small second anchor, which was barely holding the boat), I tried to call the official number given me by Port Control for a man to come out to the boat with forms to be filled in. This had to be done before I could see the Health chap, to be cleared for entry, and then Customs. After trying to call for more than 2 hours with no luck, I tried radioing on Channel 16, the emergency channel, and got a result.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two guys came to seem me in a dinghy and gave me a few pages of forms to be filled in. This I did, and then waited 2 hours for them to come back. They took me to the Health chap. That was a formality &#8211; 24 days alone at sea makes me guaranteed Covid-free! So, on to Customs, around the corner. Oh dear, Customs have knocked off early (big smiles all round, it\u2019s 3:30pm) &#8211; you\u2019ll have to come back at 8am tomorrow.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nothing to be done &#8211; an English couple who\u2019d also arrived (fleeing the ongoing volcano eruption on St Vincent) were in the same position.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Got back to the boat and shortly after it became apparent that the anchor was dragging. To hell with this &#8211; I pulled the anchor up (by hand), turned on the engine and motored over to the marina where the officials are. Fortunately everyone had gone home already, so I just tied up at the dock. Unauthorised, because I haven\u2019t been approved by Customs. I\u2019m still flying my yellow Q flag. Will just play all apologetic in the morning, citing safety etc. So I\u2019m happily tied up, which is positive. People are kind &#8211; Pedro, a young Brazilian crewman from a Maltese-registered superyacht attempted to fix my windlass, without success, although he seems to have diagnosed the problem &#8211; corroded wiring in the chain locker in the bow (which is very irritating because I had the windlass serviced before departure, and this corrosion doesn\u2019t look like it has just happened recently).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s been an 8pm Covid curfew here, but apparently tomorrow the government is changing it to 11pm. Restaurants are open, but bars not. That\u2019s fine &#8211; assuming I don\u2019t get arrested in the morning, and clear Customs, hopefully tomorrow evening I will be sitting in a restaurant. It will be good to eat something different &#8211; my diet has relied heavily on canned food, spiced up with dried Portuguese chorizo, canned and dried fruit, and plenty of rice. Fortunately I still have a few cans of Spanish beer in the fridge, so all is not lost&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update on first day&#8230; Things seem to take a long time here&#8230; Having anchored (with difficulty, because the electric windlass&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingmanuka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}