Australia: Getting Accustom to Customs

We had spent a lot of time researching and planning our passage to Australia as we’d heard Australian Customs was one of the toughest in the world. Our plan was to sail from New Caledonia on a more southerly route to Coff’s Harbor, a smaller port north of Sydney with less strict Customs and BioSecurity. Unfortunately with the storm coming out of the south we had no choice but to sail a more direct westerly route into Southport. The problem was that Southport’s Custom’s, Immigrations, and BioSecurity people were headquartered in Brisbane, well known as one of the strictest ports on the coast.

Soon after we arrived at the luxurious Southport Yacht Club, Australian Customs showed up. They were very professional and checked us in with minimum hassle. Since we still weren’t 100% sure we were going to sell the boat in Australia, we deferred on importing the boat at that time. Next was BioSecurity. Think of yellow hazmat suites. They were the ones we were most concerned with since they had a reputation of confiscating various foodstuffs and other items. We got a senior offical with two trainees, not a good sign. They were also very professional, but when they snapped on their latex gloves and got out their CSI lab kits, we knew we were in trouble. First they went through our fridge and food storage area, confiscating some fruit, vegetables, and other items. 

Next was the bug hunt. For the trainees, eager to make a good impression on their boss, our boat was Nirvana. Flying Cloud was a Taiwanese-constructed boat full of teak and other wood, which could be home to any number of nefarious beasts. They looked in every compartment on the boat, taking samples with their tweezers and putting them into little glass vials. They were mainly concerned with termites, looking for telltale sign called frass,  and God knows what was in our boat after visiting over 20 tropical countries. They got all excited when they found a small bit of yellow powder in a corner, until we told them that was left over from sanding the yellow glue that held on our old headliner. They said a more experienced officer would need to come the next day for a more thorough inspection. Ugh.

The crew from Plastik Plankton: Kathi and Wolfgang (Wolfie).

On the plus side, we loved Southport. Part of the famous Gold Coast of Australia, it featured endless white sand beaches, mountain range sized condominiums, and great restaurants. It was quite the culture shock after our time in stone-age Vanuatu. We finally got off the boat and walked down the street a bit where we met Kathi and Wolfgang from Plastik Plankton for a delicious fish and chips dinner. 

This is delicious, expensive food that Australia deemed "to dangerous for entry." Off to the trash bin.

The next day the A-team from BioSecurity showed up, a senior agent and another trainee. They also took the boat apart, taking various samples of whatever in their little glass vials. These would go to the lab for analysis, and they said depending on what the lab found, they might need to bring down the termite dogs later in the week. Double ugh. On top of everything else, they never looked at the bottom paint that I had painstakingly cleaned while in New Caledonia. Since a rare southbound weather window was opening the next day, we were greatly concerned we’d have to stay in quarantine in Southport, but they gave us permission to head south. The irony of all this is we never heard back from them, despite several emails to their office. Apparently we came out clean on the inspection.

On Nov. 11th we took the bus with Plastik Plankton over to the Australia Fair Mall, about four miles to the west. I spent most of the time trying to get my new SIM card working (turns out they never took out my old US SIM card) while Meryl and Kathi went grocery shopping. Again, very weird to be in a big fancy shopping mall after our experiences in Vanuatu. 

While we would have liked to stay much longer to explore Southport and the Gold Coast, we had to get ready to depart at 11:00 am the next day (to catch the outgoing tide) for our three-day sail to Pittwater, just north of Sydney.