Siberian Bureaucracy and A Cruiser Robbed

Logistics can make you crazy on a trip like the GSSR. I was working yesterday on planning for the trip, and hitting some tricky issues.

I’ve been thinking about the Visas we’ll need for getting into Siberia. We’re hitting a bit of a roadblock, in that we can’t apply for the visa until 90 days prior to our arrival date in Siberia. Unfortunately, we don’t know our arrival date, and also unfortunately, we are likely to be at sea when the time comes.

Here’s a very high-level overview of the schedule:

· First week April – The boats move from Seattle to Roche Harbor (about 80 miles north). The goal for this trip is to just shake down the boats, and see if any last minute repairs are needed.

· April 23^rd to June 7^th – Cruise to Alaska. During this time various friends and family will join us on the boat for site-seeing. The boats will travel only loosely together. We’ll each have exploring to do, and our own guests to attend to. We will meet up from time to time, but mostly we’ll just enjoy the run.

· June 7^th – The boats will form a tight group at Glacier Bay Alaska, and probably travel together from this point until reaching Japan. From Glacier Bay we’ll do a three day passage across the Gulf of Alaska.

·  June 10^th-15^th – We’ll hang out in Kodiak.

· June 17^5h-June 23^rd – Geographic Harbor, and then cruise to Dutch Harbor. Great bear watching!

· June 23^rd to July 1^st – Hang out in Dutch Harbor, home of the Deadliest Catch, and the start of our run across the Bering Sea.

· July 1^st to July 21^st – Run the Bering Sea, and explore the Aleutian islands

· July 21^st to August 1^st – Petrapovlosk Kamchatka Siberia. Spend a week hanging out in Siberia!

· August 1^st to August 7^th – Run to Hokkaido Japan, an island just north of Japan. Spend 3-4 days just “seeing Hokkaido” and dealing with the bureaucracy of entering Japan.

· August 7^th to Oct 1^st – Explore Japan and the Inland Sea. Dodge Typhoons as best we can.

· Oct 1^st – put the boats away for the winter, in a Japan marina, and at least in my case, fly home and back to reality.

· Spring 2010 – Head to: ?????

This preliminary schedule should be considered as very soft. Our real schedule will be set by the weather. There are a few spots we want to see and explore, and we will not blast through these, regardless of weather conditions, but generally, our philosophy is: “Move when the moving is good.” So, regardless of plans, if we look out the window, and see the sun, or at least don’t see a storm on the horizon, our plan is to be moving.

As I looked at this schedule, and thought about our visas for Siberia, and the fact that we have to wait until 90 days prior to arrival in Siberia to apply for visa, I saw a problem. The soonest we can apply for our visas is April 21^st. Actually, we could arrive in Siberia far later, perhaps even mid-August, so we shouldn’t really apply until at least May 15^th. Applying means sending in our passports to the Russian Consulate. This doesn’t work, in that we’ll be on the boat traveling North through Canada at the time. How do we get into and out of Canada without our passports?

As messy as it sounds, the best plan I’ve come up with so far involves me hand carrying everyone’s passports, flying from Dutch Harbor to Seattle, where there is a Russian Consulate, and paying rush fees for fast turnaround. But, this plan has its’ own risks. Our Siberian expert described it this way:

“…Theoretically they can turn your passports in 2 working days but it will cost you $300 – $400 to expedite these…”

Note the use of the word “theoretically” in that sentence. Argh. Also note the $300-400. That’s for EACH of us. Argh.

And on a completely different topic…

One of our favorite stops on the run to Costa Rica last year was at Chamela, a spectacular bay, just south of Puerto Vallarta, in Mexico. Recently there was a report of an armed robbery of some cruisers who had anchored in the bay. Here’s a full report by the victim:

-Ken W