20/20 Vision

20/20 Vision

Helen Shrewsbury lived in Lyttelton for over 20 years and was a member of Naval Point Sailing Club. Helen met her husband, Stephen, five years ago when she relocated to Auckland, taking her beloved Whiting 29 with her and exploring the Hauraki Gulf while teaching Stephen how to sail. Two years ago they left New Zealand for Europe to start an exciting new life living on board their Seastream 43, a 25yr old custom built blue water cutter rigged sloop. They keep a blog of their adventures – www.handsondeck.co.nz. Helen offers some advice to those hoping to do something similar.

If there is one word to live by when cruising in Europe it is “Flexibility”. As a New Zealand registered boat cruising in Europe with one dual UK/NZ and one NZ passport holder, trying to understand Schengen and the trials and tribulations of Brexit was a bit of a minefield!

We had arrived in the UK in March 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to take hold and nations were going into lockdown. Our original intention of buying a boat in Europe and spending the summer of 2020 cruising The Mediterranean, was fast becoming an unrealistic dream. As it turned out and due to our flexible plans, we were lucky and found the right boat in England and spent a wonderful summer doing our shake-down sail exploring the South Coast of England, Isles of Scilly, Wales, Northern Ireland and Western Scotland before returning to Cornwall to refit the boat in preparation for the start of our long sail home.

There were many obstacles we had to negotiate before we left the UK to make sure our time in Europe and beyond, was as stress free as possible. Here are just a few of those obstacles and, with the benefit of 20/20 vision, some of the things we wished we’d known but learned the hard way:

Schengen

We spent long hours researching the best places to visit and planning our Schengen calendar to fit in with the time restrictions, known to cruisers as the Schengen Shuffle. Only spending 90 days in the Schengen area, which includes most European countries, was going to severely restrict the amount of time we could spend cruising in the region. We had read on www.safetravel.govt.nz that some Schengen countries “allow New Zealanders to spend a limited time (e.g. up to 3 months) in a particular country for business or tourism, without reference to time spent in other Schengen area countries.”

Armed with this information, we wrote to the NZ Embassies of the Schengen countries we intended spending time in, namely France, Spain and Portugal, referring them to the website wording and asking them to confirm whether the bilateral visa waiver agreement would be honoured. We received positive responses from France and Spain but Portugal gave a flat “no”.

Once again, our plans needed to be flexible when France closed all their borders due to Covid and, instead of exploring the beautiful coastline and towns of Brittany on our way south, we had to miss out on France all together and instead, headed across the Bay of Biscay to La Coruna in Spain.

As we would be leaving the Schengen area from Spain after spending time in Portugal, we figured that, providing we could show where we had been cruising and as long as we had not spent more than 90 days in each of the Schengen countries, we would be fine and this proved the case.

Checking in/out of Europe

Checking in to Spain was easy and painless at the time the lockdown restrictions had just come to an end and they weren’t even interested at looking at our Covid vaccination certificates. We were now in the Schengen region and were not required to visit immigration again until we left the Schengen area. While in Spain we were boarded once by customs who checked our VAT status, immigration papers and boat insurance certificate. In the four months we spent in Europe, that was the only time we were asked for papers except when we checked in to marinas or entered Madeira.At no time did anyone ask to see our ICC certificate or any other sailing qualifications.

We checked out of the Schengen region in The Canary Islands. Checking out of The Canaries can be a little tricky, particularly if, like us, you want to explore the smaller, outlying islands (which are some of the best places to visit). La Palma, El Heirro and La Gomera have no official check out facilities. We were able to unofficially check out at El Heirro but we were only provided with a stamp on a photocopied page of our passport, which does not formally stop the Schengen clock ticking. To do this we would have had to return to Tenerife which would have been a hard slog to windward. We were told that Cape Verde would accept the documentation given us by the marina at El Heirro and this proved the case on arrival in Sal, Cape Verde.However, we have not yet tested re-entering a Schengen country, so will let you know how that goes!

VAT in UK Since Brexit, Britain has changed the process that allowed non-residents to claim back VAT on certain items. It is now at the discretion of the supplier whether or not the VAT should be paid and the best policy is, providing you are leaving the country within three months of the date of the invoice, try to get the supplier to agree that you do not pay VAT in the first place. I had long conversations with HMRC (Tax office) and the suppliers to try and find the correct policy to refer the suppliers to so they felt confident a refund was appropriate. In the end most of the suppliers refunded our VAT but we’re still waiting for the sailmaker to repay us even though every bit of the required documentation has been provided.

Celebrating crossing The Bay of Biscay - our first multi-day passage.

Insurance

Insurance is the most talked about subject for cruisers, as it is getting more difficult finding a company that will insure yachts particularly, it seems, New Zealand registered boats. Topsail Australia were great while we were in Europe but as soon as we left The Canaries they would not insure us. We were left scrabbling around trying to find an insurance company – any insurance company – that would insure us. As soon as we mentioned we were a New Zealand registered boat, we were immediately turned down with no explanation even though we had a recent survey and our rigging was new. We ended up going with Pantaenius who were about double the price of Topsail and the cover was not as good. In hindsight we believe it would have been better to keep the boat registered in the UK as it would have given us more options.

Sim Card/Data

As we were in the UK for over a year, we had a Vodafone plan which included 25GB data in Europe. However, once we had been out of England for four months this abruptly ended with very little warning, so we purchased a Spanish SIM card which gave us 40GB of data for 20 Euros a month.We could top up on line and hotspot off one phone to save purchasing a second SIM. When we left Europe, sorting a SIM card was the third most important thing to do after checking in and finding the nearest ATM!

Social Media

I put my hand up and admit that, much to Steve’s chagrin, I do spend a little time on social media.However, this has proofed invaluable as we have not only met lifelong friends but also learned a lot about local events, updated arrival information, local advice and possible buddy boats.There are Facebook pages that cover most countries/cities and we connected with these a few weeks prior to arrival. Being flexible allowed us to change our arrival date if we discovered there was a national holiday on the day we had planned to enter the country.

Bank Accounts/Cash

As our longer plan travel included going further afield than just Europe, we needed to find a bank that offered good exchange rates so our currency, which was in both NZ dollars and GB Pounds, was not whittled away and ending up in the bank coffers instead of ours! We open an account with Starling – an on-line bank which met all our requirements and continues to impress us with the wonderful on-line tools they have to help us manage our money at very low fees. We found it was a good idea to have a few hundred Euro’s handy, particularly in places like Spain, The Canaries and Cape Verde as check in procedures often included paying a small fee, and usually there were no ATM’s handy to the port.

Hilda the Hydrovane was our third crew member!

Taking delivery of Cerulean - the first day on our own and negotiating a lock!

Provisioning

We took advantage of having good, well stocked supermarkets handy and replenished our stores whenever possible. We kept our provisions well stocked as we knew we would be travelling to places where we would have less choices and certain foods would be harder to find.Our stores were kept well stocked with tins including tomatoes, corn and beans. We bought dairy produce whenever we could and kept our butter and cheese in separate containers in the fridge to stop the butter taking on the smell of the cheese. Fresh milk was hard to find as soon as we left mainland Portugal, so we stocked up on oatmilk which lasted us until we reached the Caribbean. We stored rounds of cheese, pumpkin and potatoes in the bilge where it was cool and dark, regretting we had not bought more cheese in Spain before leaving.

Boat maintenance Portugal is the best place to do any boat maintenance with a good selection of reasonably priced boatyards.Bruce’s Yard in Lagos was excellent value and was the preferred yard for cruisers as they allow live-on-boards to stay on the boat. The yard is clean and has excellent workshops and facilities to enable you to work on the boat. It is also a stones throw from the airport and some well stocked chandlers.

Further afield We were glad to have flexible plans when we made good friends with another couple and left The Canaries, buddy sailing with them south to Senegal and Gambia. Senegal Yacht Club has a fabulous sailmaker/repair/canvas guy who works fast and produces excellent results. We had some dinghy chaps made in three days and cost Euro 250 including material. Worth the trip if only to get work done!

Since leaving New Zealand in March 2020, our travels have so far taken us around the UK, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, The Canaries, Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde and across the Atlantic to The Caribbean. Being flexible with our plans and saying yes to new opportunities that present themselves has meant we have loved every step of the journey. If there is one piece of advice we’d offer for those with dreams of doing something similar, it is, JUST DO IT! You will have no regrets if you do, but bound to have them if you don’t!

Taking Cerulean to Scotland, where my parents had lived, was very special