Gummy sharks and other tales

Greek bureaucracy. My goodness. We knew clearing customs and immigration was going to require lots of patience but little did we know that a bicycle or two would have been handy as well. The Greek officials were all terrific but possibly not as efficient as they could have been. Or maybe that's just me. Still, we did get A Lot of exercise.

12.30: Walked the couple of kilometres to where we hoped we should be going. After a couple of misses, found the Port Police. (Should have ignored the building with the sign 'Customs' as absolutely nothing to do with us.)

1.15pm: Port Police (PP)--no one around. Located someone and they said to go to Room 7. After listening, Room 7 told us to go to Room 5. We waited patiently while Room 5 located a Crew List form, which we duly filled in--vessel and our details. Room 5 said it had to be faxed to Immigration and this would take a few minutes so please wait in the corridor.

As we were waiting, an English couple walked in wanting the same things. Yep, they were told to Room 7 but Room 7 said they'd have to come back tomorrow as the office was closed for the day. We suggested they try Room 5, and voila. As they filled in their Crew List, they were told it would be at least an hour's wait and perhaps for all of us to come back later. So we trooped out for coffee.

3pm: About 15 minutes after our return a fellow came out to say that we needed to walk over to Immigration. 'Over there' being in a different building 700 metres away to the left.

3.30pm: Found Immigration after a few false leads. Also had to go through a scanner as it is in the passenger terminal for cruise ships--which does make sense. Anyway, Immigration had the faxed forms, and took a copy of our passports, asked for €15 per boat, and told us to walk the 700 metres back to PP. What?

4.15ish: Back at PP and waited in the corridor outside Room 4 as Room 5 was now locked and barred. Think they'd had enough of us. We got a stamp stamped onto the Crew List and was then told to go to Customs which, of course, was 700 metres away and in the room next to Immigration. The English couple, for some reason, did not have to do this but were instead told to come back tomorrow. So! Brett and I walked the walk, put my handbag etc back through the X-Ray scanner thingo and knocked on the door of Customs.

5.10: Had to wait awhile as an American sailor was with the Customs official. When we entered the room, Customs said we only had one stamp stamped onto our one-page Crew List and we needed two. He couldn't do anything without the second stamp. Off Brett legged the 700m and back again. I waited outside and played bridge on the iPad.

5.30: Customs guy came up to me, very kindly suggesting we start the paperwork for the Transit Log while waiting for Brett to come back. He was quite apologetic, saying the PP liked to cause problems. As we were filling out the multi-page log (with lots of stamps) Brett returned, quite cool, despite PP initial refusal to give a second stamp.

5.55: Transit Log completed. €30 paid to Customs and hurrahhhhh, we were free. Wrong. Customs said we now had to walk the 700 metres (now feeling like miles) to PP to get an arrival stamp on our Transit Log.

6.30. Success!

We tottered back to Amble via the old town of Corfu, and through the Old Fortress, to get to Amble's mooring. Stunning location, and we were tired but pleased we have the necessary paperwork. I hope.