Seasonal shift
A good time to bail out is when Johannesburg starts its rainy season. Having lived in the UK for most of our lives, we do not share the locals’ enthusiasm for the sudden downpours! But then it is briefly swapping spring for the late autumn UK gloom before heading back to Freebooter. Hurray!
We are going to try to be even greener, (not from sea conditions hopefully), by fitting even more solar panels. Thanks to ebay, these are very affordable, especially by comparison with the US imports you get in the Caribbean, but…….
The traditional greeting at Grenada airport is ‘do you have any boat parts?’ There is a sense that you could be carrying an AK47 with you, and it would be fine as long as it was not going to a boat! But boat parts are a bit of a shakedown opportunity.
Previously there was little point getting put out about it when the custom’s tax rate was 2.5%-6%, but there is now utter confusion with some officials suggesting they will charge up to 50%. Sadly 3 solar panels are a bit too large to hide under your T-shirt! So we have to try and navigate a way through this mess without it costing more than the panels. Now the talk is that you need to use an agent and leave the parts at the airport until you can get a 2nd set of (unspecified) forms delivered to customs, and you may just have to hope that the goods have not found a new home in the meantime…… – Nightmare!
It is like something you would expect of a banana republic….oops, it is a banana republic J
Freebooter 