The Schengen Agreement (Part 2)
13 November 2014
The Schengen Agreement( part 2.)
The above wasn't sent for reasons you will understand after you read part 2. Remember the blog of Tarifa where I said our experience would be told later? Well here it is..... We had a couple of days up our sleeves when we had finished with the fitting of the batteries in La Linea Spain, so we thought an overnight trip to Morocco looked good. Used a travel agent to organise things, travelling by ferry from Tarifa in the south of Spain across the Gibralta Straits to Tangiers. Guided tour, local type lunch, accommodation, breakfast and free time before returning on the ferry next day. We arrived by bus at Tarifa and made our way to the ferry terminal with tickets and passports in hand joining the queue to board. Just one minute!!!!!!!the frontier police on the passport control had us taken aside and we were then questioned, about how long we had been in the EU. Then they told us we wouldn't be going to Morocco. The ferry left with us being taken into the police offices, past lock up cells with 4 chairs in them...was that a coincident?..Don't know what we looked like, 4 senior persons sitting along a wall confronted by about 6 uniformed police...Fortunately for us an English speaking officer arrived and took over the questioning. He told us we should be arrested for overstaying our visa and we should go to Seville to have new ones issued. When he understood we were on a yacht things changed. He agreed that the authorities in ports are only interested in the ships papers and that the passports are valid. They aren't interested in how long you have been around. But here we were leaving the EU and Spain at a Frontier and this required clearing out of both areas. One of the other officers wanted to throw the book at us but we think the English speaker out ranked him. He said he could stamp our passports to go to Morocco but we wouldn't be allowed back in and what do we do about the boat? He was very polite and accommodating about our situation with the occasional humourous remark. When we said we were leaving in 2 days time he gave us back our passports and told us to stay out of trouble for the 2 days. We exchanged pleasantries and left for a day of sightseeing in Tarifa on the suggestion of the officer.........Again .....lucky us!!!!!!!!!!!! This will be on the blog when we are about to depart the Canary Islands as they too are part of the Schengen agreement.