x-no-archive:yes


"Jerry" wrote:

Ok, so each of you has made a decision not to go for reasons ranging from
the $300 fee to homeland security BS when you come back. Why not boycott the
US because of the homeland security BS?.

Because I can't do that being a US citizen and living in the US. To
boycott the US, I'd have to leave and not come back. While some US
citizens are bitter and anti-government and want to do that, I don't


Each of us does out own thing based on our own situation. Just because
someone doesn't have a problem with the $300 fee doesn't make them STUPID as
a few earlier posters said. Personally, paying the $300 for a winter in the
Bahamas is well spent money as compared to most places in the Keys this time

I didn't call you stupid, and I've talked to other people and
questioned them about their reasons for going.

What I objected to was not the fee, so much as the waffling around.
And also the possibility that one might have to pay an additional fee
for an extended cruising permit of more than 3 months. When we were
there in 2002, some folks were having trouble getting a cruising
permit for as long as they were going to be there and being required
to check back in at a port of entry in 3 months or 6 weeks or one
month. The problem is that ports of entry aren't everywhere in the
Bahamas. So folks were having to go in to Nassau and go to the
headquarters to get their cruising permit for the length of time that
they intended to be there even though the (at that time) $100 cruising
permit was supposed to automatically be for a year.

IMHO it is the south Florida (mostly) power boaters that have made
this a problem for the rest of us by trying to avoid paying the fee
each time they bop across the Gulf Stream for a few days in Bimini.
It only takes them a hour or two (depending on the boat). They pretend
that they've been there all along, and don't pay the entry fee that
they owed for each visit.

Again IMHO what they should have done was have a $300 yearly fee for
those folks, and maybe a $150 six month fee good for multiple entries
within that time frame, and then go back to the $100 fee for a single
entry in a year boats. Because someone that comes and stays is
spending a lot more money in the Bahamas and buying stuff on which
import duties have been paid and thus supporting the economy more than
the back and forth folks will.

I wrote them to that effect when the initial writing campaign was
launched.

of the year --- talk about overcrowding! If the entry fee is not in line
with what you feel is fair & reasonable, then send them a letter and don't
go. If there is a big dropoff in revenues because of the fee increase, they

I've done that.

will respond accordingly. Calling me (and all the others over here) stupid
for not agreeing with you is a bit out of line.

Try to keep all this in perspective. Most of the Bahamians are poor
relative to most of the cruisers who come over. They are only taxing the
rich. Isn't that what all good US liberals want? Sucks to be on the other
side of that whine!

The entry fee isn't just for US visitors you know.

Most of the people I've talked to who are going just do not think that
the entry fee is a real problem. Someone said to me that this was a
once in a lifetime trip for him (I think he was actually Canadian so
the fee was a lot steeper for him than for us), so he was going to go
ahead and go.

grandma Rosalie