City Dock of Beaufort, Beaufort, South Carolina

Had a visit last night about 10 pm from US Customs and Border Protection Agency. Two agents apparently regularly walk the docks in Savannah, and they just wanted to see our documentation. Turns out that when we entered the US at Drummond Island, they did not actually issue us a cruising permit. They gave us a paper signed by a supervisor and a number, but neither was sufficient for the agents last night. They also said that we needed to check in at every stop. The people at Drummond Island had said rather vaguely that they thought we needed to check in at each sector, but they could tell us nothing about the sectors. I checked their web site and could find nothing about foreign vessels reporting after the initial entry into the US. We had also called the coast guard asking for more information about reporting, and they said there was no need. Therefore we had not reported to anyone since last August. Two agents came by again at 1 am, knocked on the boat and got us out of bed. They needed more info, which we gave them. We were then to call the supervisor at 8 this morning. He directed us to come into the office, which required a taxi ride to the edge of town. He gave us a proper cruising permit, told us that we do need to report in at each stop, plus we need to report to the Coast Guard at each stop in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. He also gave us a verbal warning for not reporting in. The penalty could have been $5,000 for the first infraction, and $10,000 for each subsequent one, so given all of our stops since we have entered the US last August would surely have bankrupted us. In any case, he gave us a verbal warning and documenttion of that, so if anyone asks, it has been dealt with. He also said that he had been in touch with the people at Drummond Island to let them know that they had not done things properly. Throughout, the Border Protection people were very polite and professional.
We left Savannah at 11:30, much later than we had planned. Travelled much of the day with dolphins, blew out ofthe bakc of pelicans. Arrived at Beaufort (pronounced Bewfort) late this afternoon. Wind was gusting as we docked, and the fast tidal current was going full stream. As I went to throw the rope to the dock attendant, one of the cushions off the seat on the back deck went flying out of the back of the boat and floating off around another boat on the next dock in the marina. Once we got docked, we went looking, actually found the cushion tucked in beside a cruise boat way on the other side of the marina. We were able to fish it out, only a little the worse for wear. We were lucky!

A marine recruiting centre on the Beaufort River 

After we docked, spent about an hour figuring out all of the new reporting we need to do, guess we'll get used to it. We plan to stay here at least a day to tour the town.