<Bob wrote: ....Our last several entries into Pensacola was a cell phone call in on arrival and "come to the office in a few days" type of entry> Ah yes Bob, but the times are changing. Our last entry into the US, in St John, USVI, requires all persons on board to come to the Customs/Immigration dock at the same time. In other words you must anchor somewhere and come in by dinghy as there's no space for a big private boat to dock. They then may or may not ask you to bring the boat to the dock for further inspection or send a guy. Not to long ago a crew list and the captain was all that was required. Before that just the phone call. And before that basically nothing. So I see a pattern of escalation here as to what the US Customs/Immigration want to check for. In St Martin there was no check-in/out till a few years ago. Now they need an incoming Zarpe, a ton of questions and are also randomly checking the boats entering in person. I'm not trying to alarm anyone but I do see that various countries are changing clearance procedures to include searches and checks for many things that were un-heard of 3 or 4 years ago. For the US or the EU to add emissions to the list isn't far off, IMO. BTW, the fees for clearing in/out have also dramatically jumped..gee another source of revenue ;-). The cost of running the Caribbean Island jurisdictions (about 15 entities) from Venezuela to the USVI was in the order of $100.00 total back in the early 80's and took no more than a few moments of your time. Now it runs $1500 and can be as much as 2000 if you catch the wrong person on duty. Today you'd better figure a weeks worth of time just for clearing procedures! As always, YMMV Dave & Nancy Swan Song Roughwater 58