A Greek Odyssey 🤯😢

Nightmare is more like it! When we arrived in Corfu, it was mid afternoon and the post office was closed where we were supposed to pay for our cruising permit. We'd have to wait until the next day. Fortunately we found a phone shop to get a SIM card and I was happy to be connected again! We anchored in the bay with the old fortress lit up nearby.
The next morning we spent +3 hours going between customs, Port police, passport control, and around again, all in different places, only to be denied entry! 🤯 The passport fellow counted our days in EU and said we were at 90 and therefore we could not enter, we'd have to go back to Albania, see if we could get a visa and we were to return to our boat and not come ashore again or we could be arrested! On our way back to the boat another Cdn. boat was anchored nearby so we stopped to chat. Mark & Lisa are from Victoria and they had some suggestions and helpful information. They offered to come by later and their company and our libations were a welcome respite from our dilemma of where to go (Albania? Montenegro? and how do we catch our flt home from Paris?!) They suggested we stay anchored and go back in 2 days with our calculations of days in EU within the last 6 months. So, we spent the next day cleaning swimming and breaking the rules by going ashore to get groceries and much needed medicinal booze! This a.m. we loaded up the bikes because we'd ended up walking 10 kms between offices the last time and decided it would be easier on bikes. We went to Passport, they sent us to Customs who wanted our Insurance document to not only state we could sail in Greece but it had to have a special number referencing Greek law. This was not asked for last time but we had Bob's computer so we went to a café and he pulled up the appropriate document and back we went. She sent us back to Passport where a different agent from the other day checked our passports and said we'd been denied and could not enter. Bob said (politely) that the other agent had miscalculated and went over dates and offered receipts and his spreadsheet as proof. The agent called the previous agent, had a long conversation and finally stamped our passports and customs document! He then advised there is an agreement between Canada and Greece that Cdns can spend 90 days in any other EU countries and when we come and stay in Greece we can have another 90 days. So why have we gone through denied entry????🤯🤔😖
After he stamped our documents, we had to go to Port Police then back to Customs to pay more and get new customs documents stamped. Another +3 hours and another 10 kms going in circles! Talk about bureaucratic inefficiencies and hassle! It makes Albania's entry and exit a dream. I'm hoping the Greek Gods will now look favourably upon us for the last 3 weeks.Read more