USA Cruising Permit
11 January 2016
Alex, hot and sunny with a chance of Cruising Permit Nonsense
As a Cruiser, sometimes doing a lot of passaging day after day, you surely wake up some mornings having absolutely no idea where you are!! That happened to us the other day as we had an issue to deal with that had us rapidly passaging from Simpson Bay (Sint Maarten), to Eustatia Sound (BVI), to Charlotte Amalie (St Thomas, USVI), to Culebra (Puerto Rico). That's 4 countries in 4 days. Whoa !!
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A USA Cruising Permit is basically a license which allows us, (as Canadians), owning a non-USA-built boat, (like our French built Jeanneau) to cruise in USA waters for up to one year.
"These licenses can be obtained from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Port Director at the first port of arrival in the United States. Cruising licenses are normally valid for up to a year."
Last year we obtained ours in Culebra (Puerto Rico), which allowed us to tour Culebra (and mainland Puerto Rico) for a couple short weeks. And then, lo and behold, it was Hurricane Season and time to point our bow Southwards, back towards Grenada, our home for Hurricane Season.
And honestly we never even gave the good ole Cruising Permit any more thought.
(IF ONLY we'd known then, right?)
Sometime between then and now, we changed our cruising plans. We are now venturing Northwards, changing our Hurricane Home from Grenada to Florida, and knew we would be spending much more time in USA waters.
All of a sudden this pesky little piece of paper, this permit, became an issue.
We dug it out and noticed it was set to expire on Feb 5th, after which time it would be mandatory for us to leave the "USA" for 15 days before we could re-enter American Waters.
"That means we cannot enter Puerto Rico until Feb 21st" he confirmed, as he looked at the calendar dates.
"Or we enter Puerto Rico now and have leave by the 5th !!"
"That's leaving a lot to the Weather Gods, and a lot to do, with very little time for Adventuring" I mused.
"And we have a long way to go back to Florida" said the Capt'N, quite seriously, as he looked at the charts et al, at our intended routes and intended Adventuring Grounds.
"So we need to do something about all this".
Given we were already in the Virgins, and given that weather dictates our lives, and given that it was only (already) early January, and given all sorts of things, these February dates that we needed to respect just seemed like totally not the right timing.
So we researched all sorts of research and the only solution seemed to be that we needed not enter Puerto Rico until Feb 21st or we needed to surrender the permit, and start the clock ticking, like now.
What would you have done??
We enquired in St Thomas, and their answer was: "You're the 4th person today to have asked us this."
And we asked them if we could surrender it by phone. Their answer was, unfortunately, no.
And we asked them some more. And their answer, again, was: "We used to do this, but we don't anymore."
So totally a bureaucratic issue? Something about a difference in Commonwealth and Territory and boiling down to administrative you know what.
And their final answer was: "You have to surrender it, personally, in Culebra, which is the first USA port of call form here."
We called the Culebra authorities directly. To verify. Not that we didn't believe the fine agent in the Charlotte Amalie office, but, well... you know how it is, right?
Their reply was "You could do it from St Thomas, they have the database".
So we tried calling the office here in St Thomas back and there was no answer. And we thought that we could go ashore, walk the 20 minutes to the office, hopefully get a different officer, and ask again, and we concluded that we really didn't want to piss off any agent, they are so serious looking after all.
So we stayed on our boat, prepped her for sail, and promptly sailed the 22 nautical miles to Culebra. The Weather Gods were in complete agreement and contributed by providing some excellent sailing winds and we got there in not even 3 hours.
Of course, we arrived a good half hour after the Culebra Airport C&I offices closed. Or so the kind man on the telephone told us, when we called to announce our arrival, and gave us our official entry number.
The next morning we got up early and we walked the half hour to the airport in order to be there for their 08:00 a.m. office opening.
"When did you arrive?" asked the non-smiling officer as soon as we entered the room.
"Last night, at 17:30" we replied.
"Hmm..." he responded, ready to tell us we shouldn't be on land if we hadn't called in first, "did you check in by telephone?"
"Yes sir!" we smiled, as we handed him the piece of paper with the officious number.
(They are very serious about this, do not go ashore unless you've first cleared in via telephone!!)
And as he stared at the number, he realized he didn't have much to reprimand us for, but he did smile as he handed the job off to his peer, as it seemed to not be on his list of duties that day.
"Welcome to Culebra, how long are you here for?" asked the other agent.
"We're leaving as soon as we surrender our permit" we said in all seriousness.
We all laughed after we explained our situation.
And as he deleted our particulars from the system and our Cruising Permit was null and void, he told us that we "Did the right thing" and "See you in 15 days".
So then we headed back to Charlotte Amalie, called the Customs number to announce our arrival "just in case", and are now on a 15 day stay out of the USA (but we're ok to be in the USVI (go figure), countdown!!
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Oh, and psst: if you're entering Culebra or Puerto Rico, and getting a Cruising permit, make sure you enter from the BVI, your entry fee will be only $19. If you enter from the USVI, you will be charged $39.
https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/608/~/pleasure-boats---obtaining-a-cruising-license-after-old-one-expires