Home In Lima
Clark June 24th, 2007
I finished the check-in process and it wasn’t that bad, especially since I was the first foreign yacht to break down the wall of doing it without an agent. Peru is one of those countries that doesn’t distinguish between recreational yachts and cargo ships, so I had to fill out forms about how many crewmembers had died of the plague, when the ship was deratted, and how many tons of bunker fuel I would be taking on.
It’s a shame because Peru has a terrible reputation among cruisers, which is entirely undeserved, although it may have been true in the past. The yacht club here is very friendly, and aching to be more part of the international scene. The west coast cruising route has been pushing further and further south every year, to where now Ecuador is definitely on the circuit with a few nice yacht clubs and marinas. Peru would be next in line, and the yacht club in Callao is a safe place to leave the boat and go to Cuzco, Machu Picchu, and all that Peru has to offer. Chile got about seventy foreign yachts this year, I would guess Ecuador saw a couple hundred, and Peru has had four.
It’s not so hot for the locals either: Peru charges a luxery tax on yachts of five percent of the value of the boat anually. A lot of locals have their boat registered in the US or Ecuador.
So this will be Condesa’s home for the next few months. I’m shopping for plane tickets to come on home for the summer.
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