Clearing out was a ridiculous exercise, but not an atypical experience. I’ve learned to be nice and to appear patient, and this attitude served me well once again.
As usual, I tried to plan ahead and went to all the relevant offices the day before to ask questions about the process. It sounded straightforward: just go to customs and immigration, which was easy since those two offices were right next to each other. I even took the forms with me from customs so I could have them already filled out ahead of time.
Of course, the next day when I actually went to clear out it wasn’t quite so easy. There were several curveballs thrown including 2 additional offices I needed to go to (local government and port authority) and the suggestion of a boarding party for a visual inspection of the boat. I was patient, I was nice, I walked around town and did everything I needed to do, and that paid off, because in the end the customs guy waived the onboard inspection, and in his own words, “he’ll just trust me that we don’t have things to declare.”
In the end, here is what I ended up doing to clear out:
1. Paid $25 fee at local government office (government building, upstairs)
2. Cleared out with port authority. The port authority office is down by the wharf, upstairs from the post office. I found it by asking several people. There was no fee, and the paperwork was almost identical to the customs paperwork, but whatever.
3. Immigration office, which is downstairs at the government building. (The government building in Ebeye is at the south end of the island and houses the following offices that I know of: Customs, Immigration, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Local Government.) There was no paperwork, they just stamped our passports.
4. Customs office. Filled out forms and obtained outbound clearance paperwork.
Gresham Family Exodus 