Paul Heiney

Planning your summer cruise has taken on a slightly more complicated aspect since Covid and Brexit made a cross channel dash something of a logistical headache

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It’s time to get the summer sorted. Now, where shall we go? France is always a favourite, isn’t it? A quick dash across the Channel, for a mouth full of crusty baguette that leaves with ngerprints from next year. To be honest, a er a few hours on a cold tiller I don’t have any ngerprints le , so the best of luck with that one. I’m afraid this is all beginning to take me back to my voyage in the your mouth feeling sandpapered. south Atlantic where dealing with en ashore for an evening’s o cials verges on a full time job. indulgence of steak and frites For example, on arrival in a port in, swilled down with a pichet or two say, Brazil, you must rst nd an of rough red wine. at’s the life. immigration o cer to stamp your ere was a time, now passport, then customs clearance, seemingly long, long ago, when and nally a permission from the all we had to do when we tied harbour authority. Cruising is up in France, was go ashore largely unheard of there, and so the and hit the bars and cafes. procedures are exactly the same as e capitainerie might want a if you were a fully-laden oil tanker, few details, but no more than and about as ponderous. Just to that. Hardly an inconvenience. make life interesting, the o ces are

But times have changed, and o en spread around town; or worse, because Covid has largely kept us at down dark and doomy docksides home for the last couple of sailing seasons, we have yet to fully come ‘Imagine a sail from Cowes to where threat lurks - mugging here is almost a national sport. I to terms with how much delayed that rst croissant could now be. Lymington requiring the remember a hot and steamy tramp round the back streets of Salvador

We are no longer part of the EU, o cial stamp of no less that hunting down the customs man. I everyone knows that, but what happens next is less certain. For six government o cers?’ eventually found his smoke lled o ce, complete with aged computer example, can you be sure of the installed before Bill Gates was new entry requirements for sailing to France? Various born, over which he laboured in a confused kind of organisations have done sterling work in trying to pin way. I presented him with my papers. He immediately down the actual rules, but from my reading they all seem swung his legs on the desk, stroked his moustache, lit a to have come to di erent conclusions. is is possibly cigarette, and then icked through them with the disdain because governments on both sides of the Channel of your English teacher reading your rubbish essay. A er don’t know what the rules are either, or don’t care. about ve minutes, he slammed the papers down and

When these things are le to rumour and anecdote, declared, ‘Come back tomorrow. I am tired’. No kidding! that’s when we should start to worry. I have read on To make cruising life even more pleasant you have to various internet forums (usually as reliable as asking a reverse the procedure when you leave port, and go through con rmed liar for the time of day, I know) that the French it all again at the next harbour, even though they’re in aren’t making any fuss so don’t bother doing anything. the same country. To appreciate the full inconvenience en there’s story of a friend’s friend ned 500 Euros that can cause, imagine a sail from Cowes to Lymington for nipping ashore for a quick pint. Or is there an online requiring the o cial stamp of no less that six government entry form, but which still requires you to use an o cial, o cers. Surely, it can never get as bad as that here, can it? possibly dreary, port of entry? One of the great pleasures, Possibly it might - the complications and permutations for me, has always been those quiet anchorages to be keep on coming. I am going up to Scotland this year, found along the Brittany coast, far from the obese marinas probably calling in the Republic of Ireland, then Northern which have appeared in recent years. But I’m guessing that Ireland as I make my way up the Irish Sea. Despite any o cial is not going to be overjoyed at being called there being no land border between the two, it seems out in the middle of the night with the o er of a row out yachts won’t have the same privilege. And so it begins. to a rolling boat, thirty miles from their o ce, with the At least when I round the Mull of Kintyre promise of a soggy trip in an Avon dinghy with a slow and enter Scotland, there’s no prospect of leak. And now the latest rumour - they’re going to do it all a border crossing there, is there?

ILLUSTRATION CLAIRE WOOD