Birvidik

Ah yes, Kos marina.

Kos has a reputation as the marina to which all other Greek marinas should aspire. It reputedly has helpful staff, good facilities, pleasant surroundings and low prices. Possibly for those reasons it appeared to be extremely popular. We had been trying to get in there over a period of three weeks. We particularly wanted Kos for several reasons, including the fact that it was a port of entry so we could do the paperwork, it had good chandlers so we could get some spares we needed, and it had a number of English speaking vets so we could organise Einstein's paperwork.

Our first approach, by email, elicited the response that they were full up, but try again in a few days. We tried again in a few days - still full up. This went on at intervals until they stopped replying to our emails. We went over on the ferry and tried in person. No luck. We decided to just turn up and see what happened, and so we set off from Bodrum after The Unpleasantness and arrived off the marina. Bob called them on the radio. No reply. After the third unsuccessful call we just motored blithely into the marina, only to be met by the chappie in the RIB who told us they were full and would we kindly clear off and stop cluttering up his nice marina. He directed us to the old harbour about half a mile away, which the pilot says is usually full and that boats should go to the marina instead. Hmmm.

There was plenty of room in the harbour and we dropped our stern anchor and moored bows to. Bob set off to do the paperwork required for re-entering Greece from outside the EU. This involved first presenting our passports to immigration control, and then finding a port policewoman to accompany us back to the boat. She looked at our passports, looked at us, looked back at our passports, looked at the boat, looked at her watch and then filled in a two page form and crew list, stamped it several times, and told us we had to then take it back to immigration control. They stamped it several more times and laboriously hand copied the contents onto another, apparently identical form. Then they photocopied our form three times, their copy once, and sent us next door to customs.

Customs looked at all our forms, stamped them with a variety of different stamps and charged us 30 euros for a form (lovingly hand stamped) stating that we didn't owe them any money. They then sent us next door to Health, who repeated the process before issuing us with another form stating that we were fine healthy specimens and fit to be let into the EU. They did this without asking us any questions, let alone giving even the most cursory of medical examinations. In fact the whole procedure was carried out without so much a word from them and without Liz even being there. We could have been going down with virulent cases of swine flu, bubonic plague and Ebola virus simultaneously for all they knew.

The final hurdle was to clear through the Port Police, who were over the other side of the harbour. They won't even let you through the door there until the guy on the door has given you the third degree and you've waved all the aforementioned forms in his face. When he finally realises that you've done all the required paperwork and that he can't find a single reason to tell you to go away, he, rather disappointedly, presses a button and lets you in to the main building. Once in, you go down the corridor and wait patiently at the counter of the main office. This office had four people in it. One looked up from his desk as Bob walked in and immediately went out into what turned out to be the kitchen. Two others were going through a large pile of forms minutely scrutinising each one before stuffing them all in a large file and sticking it in a cupboard. They then opened another cupboard full of files and started on another one. Neither of them looked up.

The fourth member of the team had a bit of a problem here as she was sitting at the counter and Bob caught her off guard as he entered. She recovered magnificently though and promptly knocked a pile of files onto the floor which she then had to pick up. I suspect that she had a panic button under the desk for just such an eventuality because her phone then rang and she had to spend ten minutes on a long conversation.

She finally realised that Bob wasn't going to go away and took all his nice new forms, along with the boat's registration papers, the Greek cruising log, the insurance certificate, the crew list and our passports. She then wanted to know our fathers' forenames and our mothers' names, including maiden names along with their dates and places of birth. Bob just made up the last two.

The process culminated in a crescendo of stamping and signing. She had a range of stamps, ranging from elaborate neo-gothics at least 10 cm across, all scrolls and filigree, to a number of nifty little spring-loaded ones which pulled out of a cylinder the size of a fountain pen. She was particularly proud of these and made sure Bob saw the way they unfolded with a flourish at a flick of the wrist. Bob looked suitably impressed, smiled and made appreciative noises. He thought this wisest as she also had a bloody great gun and one of those spring-loaded batons. Well it was either that or one hell of a stamp. Bob paid the 15 euro fee for this entertainment and left. We were officially back in Greece. All that was left now was Einstein's paperwork.

Dreading the Kafkaesque nightmare that we anticipated, we found the vet. At first we thought our fears were well founded. "Oooh no - bringing a cat in from Turkey - many problems. Hide all the Turkish documents, don't let anyone see them." She then said that we needed to start the whole process over again in Greece, new rabies jabs, new everything, wait a month, get blood serum tested, take out Turkish chip, put in new EU chip, put her in quarantine, burn all the evidence etc. When she mentioned quarantine it slowly dawned on us that she thought we wanted to take the cat back in Britain from Greece. When we said that this wasn't the case everything changed. Apparently it was only the UK that required all this. Everywhere else in the EU was perfectly happy with the documentation we already had.

Relieved, we left the vet's and decided to take a stroll to the see the jam-packed marina. When we got there, in the early evening, there were 40 unoccupied berths, over 10% of the total available. Each unoccupied berth cost the marina owners the berthing fee and potentially loses custom for all the businesses within and around the marina - bars, restaurants, shops, chandlers, laundries

I don't know what scam they're running there, but it's losing quite a number of people quite a bit of money.