Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Meeting Many Rules

We’ve done our homework and decided.  We are not moving.  Gibraltar has the pleasure of our company until early October.  Here we will rest the Captain’s still ailing wrist and here we can hide away (legally) out of the Schengen area. 


A cloud settles over the Rock in a Levante (from the east)
WJ3 can roll into her next 18 month limit (or we pay VAT – at 23%...gasp, gurgle gurgle!!) and we have some respite from the ever-clicking 90 day Schengen limit.  (After 90 days, we can’t re-enter any Schengen country for a further 90 days).  Long term tourist visas are out of the question.  Finding non-Schengen countries close by is difficult – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia….  Portugal is happy to extend our stay marginally, giving us time to haul out and fly home from Faro.   

And our neighbour is really good at fixing things
We had toyed with the idea of going to Cueta or Smir on the African coast.  Both would have to be stays in marinas anyway and they are reported to be more expensive than Gib.  Cueta is a Spanish enclave, so we would have to set the Schengen clock ticking again and Smir, a Moroccan port is a bit of an unknown (no dockage rates on the web and it’s currently Ramadan).  Duty free Gib then, gets our vote; supermarkets full of brands we know, cuts of meat we can cook, beer we can drink and a few friends to monkey around with.  So here we are, snug as two bugs in a British rug.  And yes, that’s really a roast (British) lamb you can smell in the oven.  Who knows, maybe we’ll be ordering a satellite TV dish shortly too....


Yars, this dockside business is the life for us. 
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2 comments:

  1. Sylph VIAugust 16, 2012 at 5:07 PM

    Hi Dave and Jenny, I trust you are enjoying yourselves, it sounds like it. That Schengen agreement is a real pain, it really limits what one can achieve in a sailing season. 90 days to sail Europe is just not enough especially if you want to get to the higher latitudes, but it sounds like you have it sorted for now. Where next? Regards, Bob Williams, Sylph VI, RANSA.

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  2. Windjammer3September 7, 2012 at 3:52 PM

    Hi Bob, Thanks for your comment and, yes, the Agreement is a pain, especially when you can’t apply for a long term tourist visa. Oh well, Gibraltar’s been very relaxing as you probably noted from our blog articles. Next year we’ll head east to be able to better split our time between Schengen and non-Schengen countries. Cheers

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