The flipside

L'Shana Tova for all.

I returned to the US to receive my visa which took over three months, yes over three months! Then rescheduling a flight was no easy task using frequent flier miles – limited seating availability. I finally arrived back in Nouméa after four months. It is so nice to be back, Philippe and I are happy to be reunited.

What have we been doing in the time? Well, we have both been working, Philippe in Nouméa and myslf in New Jersey. There was some trepidation on my part in regards to my return. Why you ask, well, I returned to Tontouta airport (local international airport) with a great deal of luggage. My concerns were twofold: customs would decide I had an inordinate amount of luggage and decide to search and then tax me on everything and the bags would not all fit in the car. Went through quarantine and all they asked was if I had any food, which honestly I did not, and amazingly all items fit in our little Twingo. Small, relatively, remote French islands have a considerable importation tax rendering most goods considerably more than they are in US. With that in mind I had done some serious shopping in the US. Almost all items made it through, of course the one item which will be the most expensive to ship from the US or replace here was damaged beyond repair in transit. I am waiting to hear from my credit card if they will reimburse me. American Airlines lays responsibility on the international carrier and Quantas says they are only responsible for the exterior of a bag. So we shall see how responsive Citicards is to their customers needs…I shall keep you informed.

Other news the picture below is of my Carte de Sejur. This is really more important than the Visa, as this allows me to work, and live in New Caledonia. After so many months of waiting it was surreal to walk into the Bureau des les affairs des Entragers and simply fill out a form, hand over the appropriate documents (while they made their own copies!), and be told to return in a week.

The other issue we have (more Philippe) been dealing with is importing the boat. Philippe is French, so he has no problem. Like me the boat is American. Unlike me ZAYA and all other foreign boats receive a one year stay upon their arrival. Though it is far easier to change a flag rather than a passport (don’t worry I am not giving up my American citizenship). The biggest challenge is that no one seemed to know what was required of us. People tend to air on the dramatic, and were telling us everything from the idea that we had only 6 months to import the boat, and would have to pay 30% of what they deem the value of the boat to be. A scary proposition as the market here seems to bear considerably higher than US market prices. One example of the confusion happened to our friends, who are French with a French boat. They were told they would have to pay tax on the shipping of their boat from France. When they informed the official that they sailed from France, the confused government representative merely repeated the information they had in front of them. They eventually worked everything out and did not pay tax on a container ship which was never used. As for Zaya, our situation, after speaking with the head of customs, Philippe seems to have worked everything out. Now we will have an American flagged boat, which resides in Nouméa (similar to my situation – foreign resident).

Why not get a French flag for the boat. This was an issue Philippe dealt with in the US. The Zaya is an American built boat and is not CE certified (a standard for all goods in Europe). In order for the boat to get a French or European flag it would need to pass a CE certification. To get the boat accessed in the US was going to cost $10,000! This was just for the assessment of all the things which would then need to be fixed/or replaced to meet standards from 1998. That idea was economically ridiculous. Why $10,000 for a survey, well that survey would then allow all boats of the same make or model to be sold or imported to Europe. 10K is not much for an American boat builder to pay to be able to import a whole line of boats. The coast may easily be shared over hundred of boats. For us it was just not practical. Below you have the beginning of our documentation!

The next item on the to do list is to a job, and then everything will be well on Zaya.