On Grenada Immigration
A person clearing into Grenada aboard a yacht may now receive 90 days’ stay from Immigration (this reverts to the practice of a year ago). Following the initial 90 days, if the person wishes to remain in Grenada, he should apply to Immigration (at either the Immigration office at the Botanical Gardens in St. George’s, Grenada, or the Immigration office in Hillsborough, Carriacou) for an extension, which will be charged at EC$25 for each additional 30 days.
When clearing in, let Immigration know if you will be flying out of the country rather than leaving aboard the yacht. You’ll be given a form to fill out that will expedite your departure at the airport.

French Form Gets Kudos
Keats Compton reports: Yachtsmen clearing into Martinique give high praise to the single-page Customs form in use there. There are two simple sections: one for essential information about the yacht and one for essential information about the persons aboard. It should take no more than five minutes to fill out, even if you have beaucoup crew. Vive la France!

US Passport Rule
United States citizens traveling to the Caribbean, Canada and beyond by sea, air or land, will be required to have a passport to return into the US come June 1, 2009.

Eight Bells
A pioneer in the Caribbean’s scuba-diving world, Bert Kilbride died on January 8th at the age of 93. A Massachusetts-born treasure hunter who came to the Virgin Islands in 1956, he created one of the region’s first recreational diving operations. After a short stint on St. Croix, he gained resident status in the BVI and started Dive BVI.
In 1967, Kilbride built the 12-room Drake’s Anchorage resort on Mosquito Island. The reefs surrounding the island of Anegada, a graveyard of ships, were nearby. He was involved in the finding of 91 different shipwrecks in that area.
In a 2000 article in Sport Diver magazine, A.J. Bernstein wrote: “In l970 Kilbride sold Dive BVI and moved to Saba Rock, a 3/4-acre spit of land in Virgin Gorda’s North Sound. He had to haul in everything from the dirt up. He built a house out of driftwood and rock. There he began Kilbride’s Underwater Tours (Dive With Pride With Bert Kilbride!)…. In l989, Hurricane Hugo blew through the BVI and did enough damage to temporarily kill off the dive business, so Kilbride opened the Pirate’s Pub on Saba Rock.” Kilbride also established a wreck museum on Saba Rock to display many of his underwater finds.
According to Kilbride’s website (www.bertkilbride.com) “In the 1960s I created the ‘Resort Course’ for beginners interested in scuba diving. It is now taught worldwide under the name of the ‘Introductory SCUBA Course’.” Kilbride claimed that his mother made him his first dive mask when he was eight years old, and that in 2004, for his 90th birthday, the Guinness Book of World Records proclaimed him the Oldest Scuba Diver in the World.
Kilbride told Bernstein, “I’ve thought about being frozen just before I pass on. They could defrost me around 2062, and I’d renew my 99-year lease on Saba Rock, then maybe get in a dive or two. Wouldn’t that be something!”

Cruisers’ Site-ings
• Venezuela’s maritime safety organization ONSA (Organización Nacional de Salvamento y Seguridad Marítima) welcomes boaters to its Web platform for Discussion Forums at www.onsa.org.ve/comunidad/forum/. You can register and participate in the English-speaking section for Caribbean cruisers and other English-speaking users (www.onsa.org.ve/comunidad/forum/viewforum.php), to comment on and discuss any issues related with life at sea: maritime safety, tourism, incidents, etcetera.
For more information contact scnp@onsa.org.ve.
• The monthly bulletin of the international Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA) is now available for members on-line at the Members’ Section of www.ssca.org. Not a member yet? Visit the website to see all the benefits of membership and learn how you can join.
• June 21st/22nd, 2008 is the eighth annual “Summer Sailstice” and an opportunity for you to join all sailors in a common celebration of sail. Summer Sailstice is the global holiday celebrating sailing held annually on the summer solstice, the longest sailing days of the year. It’s easy to participate in Summer Sailstice and it’s free! Summer Sailstice participants who register automatically become eligible to win one of over 300 prizes from our sponsors, from yacht charters to sailboats to gift certificates from top sailing retailers. Just sign up at www.summersailstice.com and go sailing!
For more information contact john@summersailstice.com.

Not APIS Again!?!
A Caribbean Economic Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government meeting on Crime and Security was held in April in Trinidad. There it was agreed that, building on the legacy of the security co-operation arrangements put in place for the Cricket World Cup 2007, during which matches were held on several islands, some of the elements would be upgraded and expanded on a permanent basis. These elements include the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), which wreaked such havoc when sporadically applied to yachts in 2007 without prior consultation, introduction or consideration of the peculiarities of the yacht tourism industry.
At the beginning of 2007, ten CARICOM countries (Jamaica, Antigua & Barbuda, St. Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana) passed national legislation requiring APIS compliance from “ALL air and sea carriers”, although to our knowledge only Antigua & Barbuda, St. Vincent & the Grenadines and Barbados ever actually required yachts to comply.
To comply, the master of every vessel sailing to or from a CARICOM port of entry was to supply detailed passenger information via a complex “fill-in-the-fields” form found on a website (www.caricomeapis.org). Arrival time was to be stated in days, hours and minutes. The completed form was to be sent electronically to ports of entry in advance of arrival and departure. The forms were to be submitted according to a strict timetable relevant to the vessel’s time of departure and/or arrival, with different advance times required depending on whether you were arriving in, departing from, or traveling within CARICOM. Fines for non-compliance were in six figures.
An overwhelming number of private yacht skippers, and many of the professionals, too, found the complicated, time-consuming and internet-dependent system unworkable, placing the Eastern Caribbean’s yacht tourism industry at risk.
At an October 2007 meeting between stakeholders and the Joint Regional Communications Centre (JRCC: the implementing arm of APIS), Caribbean Marine Association (CMA) Director Donald Stollmeyer recommended: “…APIS be suspended for yachts pending a properly organized, in-depth analysis of the manner in which the yachting industry operates. Based on the information gathered, informed choices could be made to address the needs of the yachting industry and, at the same time, satisfy the reasonable anti-crime/terrorism requirements of the JRCC.” Any application of APIS to yachts was suspended in late 2007.
At the conference in April, the CARICOM Heads agreed to sign the Maritime and Airspace Security Cooperation Agreement, which includes APIS, by July. Past CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister of St. Vincent & the Grenadines Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, was quoted the April 18th edition of the Searchlight newspaper: “In relation to the Advance Passenger Information System, we are aboard, but we have to put other systems in place in relation to the yachting business because of the nature of the sector.”
Meanwhile, at a meeting of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Council of Tourism Ministers, held April 10th and 11th in Antigua, concern was expressed over the implications for the yachting sector of the proposed reintroduction of APIS by CARICOM. Ministers feared that APIS could reduce the number of yacht visitors to the sub-region.
If you have any input or comments on the APIS system to be put in place for yachts, contact your national recreational marine trades association, or the CMA at info@caribbeanmarineassociation.com.

A Bit of Fun
Bob Williamson, King Robert the Bald of Redonda, reports:
Earlier this year a new Duke was ennobled by the Court of the Kingdom of Redonda: none other than the esteemed Rodney Nicholson.
The eldest son of Commander Nicholson, founder of Antigua’s first yacht harbour and later of the yacht charter industry in the Caribbean, Rodney sailed with his brother Desmond into English Harbour in 1948 aboard their father’s yacht, the schooner Mollyhawk.
The Nicholson family settled in the rather forlorn Nelson’s Dockyard, then crumbling, roofless and uncared for. Most people shunned the Dockyard in those days in the belief that it was haunted (and many still believe that). Mollyhawk began to charter to family friends and her fame spread back in the UK. The two boys served as crew and many guests had lovely holidays on their unique cruises.
The investiture of The Duke of English Harbour was held on the terrace of Rodney’s house overlooking Nelson’s Dockyard. Four Redondan Court stalwarts clad in Schooner St. Peter T-shirts carried King Robert the Bald head-high on a chair across the lawn. Team leader Vadim Uliyanov, in a large, beribboned, pirate’s tricorn hat, led the parade to the waiting crowd. Rodney celebrated his 80th birthday at the investiture.
There is only one other Duke in the Redondan Court: Jules Walter of Falmouth who was one of the first people to come aboard my boat, the Royal Yacht St. Peter, when she arrived in Antigua after her voyage from St. Petersburg in Russia in 1995.
Rodney enjoys his newly acquired title. The new Duke will be invited to the 128th anniversary of the Kingdom of Redonda sometime after the end of Antigua Sail Week 2008, to be held at the Royal Redonda Yacht Club in the Mad Mongoose. The celebration will also mark the tenth year of Robert the Bald’s reign. See you all there.
For date and time contact bobw@candw.ag.

Nautical Expo in Venezuela
The commercial center of Plaza Mayor and adjacent docks at Lechería, convenient to the marinas at Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, will be the venue for La ExpoNáutica Anzoátegui from June 20th through 24th. This nautical exposition will showcase the boats and boating-related goods and services available in the state of Anzoátegui. This is the only show in Venezuela that exhibits boats in the water. The price of admission is 15 BsF.
For more information visit www.enoriente.com/expomorro.

Lighten Your Load
Melodye Pompa reports: If passing through Carriacou on your way south to your hurricane hole, leave your unneeded stuff at the Carriacou Yacht Club for the August 1st auction benefiting the Carriacou Children's Education Fund. We accept all those spare boat parts that you have never used, household goods, clean used clothing, and, of course, cash.
The proceeds of the annual auction make it possible for several students to attend the T.A. Marryshow Community College and for a large number to have the required uniforms and textbooks for primary and secondary school. Your contribution makes a big difference in these children’s lives.
If you are not rushing south, please join us in Carriacou for the annual CCEF activities directly preceding the 43rd Annual Carriacou Regatta Festival.
For more information on the Carriacou Regatta Festival visit www.carriacouregatta.com.
For more information about CCEF contact boatmillie@aol.com.

Ooops!
We omitted the by-line for last month’s What’s on My Mind department story, “Caught in a Net”. The author of that article was Martin Brown.

Welcome Aboard!
In this issue of Compass we welcome aboard new advertisers Soreidom of Martinique, on page 5; and Carib Mar Electric, Gittens Engines, KNJ Mariner and Ships’ Carpenter of Trinidad, Sling’s Upholstery of Carriacou, and Petit Breton of Martinique in the Market Place department, pages 51 through 53. Good to have you with us!