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Regarding the Schengen Visa…

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One question – among many – that is easy to misunderstand with international law and diplomacy is the Schengen Visa system implemented in Europe. For people from the USA who have ever traveled for a few days or weeks at a time, this is not a problem. Most people never even come close to 90 days in one region other than their own home. But for those of us who have floating homes and spend significant amounts of time abroad, visas are a huge issue.

The Schengen Visa is an agreement among most of the European Union to allow “borderless” travel. This means, for instance, you can drive from Germany into France and you’ll see no more than a road sign that says “Welcome to Germany”… no border or passport checks. This is also pretty awesome for cruising around the Schengen Area. It makes checking in and out of countries easy and relaxed as long as you’re within that 90-day window.

However, there are a LOT of misconceptions about what happens when this 90-day clock starts to run out.

The newest wording of the agreement stands thusly (as of October 2013):
“The maximum duration of authorized stay is defined as 90 days in ANY 180-day period.”

The technical calculation of “90 days in ANY 180 day period” is explained like this, taken word for word from the European Commission Schengen handbook, AND restated to me by a Portuguese immigration officer:
“The notion of ANY implies the application of a ‘moving’ 180-day reference period, looking backward at each day of the stay (be it at the entry or at the day of an actual check), into the last 180-day period, in order to verify if the 90-day/180-day requirement continues to be fulfilled.”

In other terms, there is a rolling 180 day period starting from any day to 180 days back. A non-EU, non-Schengen citizen may only stay in the Schengen area with a “Short Stay Visa” (the normal passport stamp) 90 days during that period.

To explain further: say you are on your first day of staying in the Schengen Area, you just got your passport stamped. You have stayed 1 day in any 180 day period. Day One, looking 180 days back. Then you stay 90 days, and on that day, you leave (not on day 91, that would be overstaying). The next day is day 91 of that 180 day period. On the 181st day, the day you would be eligible to return, the counter does not reset! If you return on day 181, that 180 days is still rolling, but now you’re ticking off time from that first 90 days, meaning you can spend another 90 days. In this situation, the counter would always remain at 90, technically subtracting one and adding one every day.

The important thing to remember is that the days roll on: always 180 days back from the day you are on.

One factor that is commonly misunderstood is that some people believe there is some way to simply “reset” the Schengen Visa clock. Like, go out somewhere, get a stamp, and come back in and the clock resets? Let me restate something that I think people misunderstand:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “RESETTING” A SCHENGEN VISA.

It doesn’t exist. You cannot just leave and come back in and you get another 90 days.

There is only one way to legally stay in the Schengen Area after your 90 day time is up: an official long-stay visa from a Schengen member state would technically supersede the 90-day stamp. But, this process is not easy. It requires a lengthy and relatively expensive application process and almost always includes an interview at the embassy of a Schengen state.

I say “only one way to legally stay in the Schengen Area” but there is one alternative: the Portuguese Extension.

The Portuguese Option

Now, Portugal is a different matter. Yes, it is in the Schengen Area, but they have maintained a simplified visa extension system. It is possible only in Portugal (for the moment), but it requires a rather elaborate process. I have personally talked to one of the officers in charge of making the decision for such visas, and this officer explained that the deciding factor is usually based on need or extenuating circumstances.

I asked this immigration officer: “So, being stuck in Portugal in order to avoid hurricane season?” Their answer, although noticeably noncommittal: “This person would have a good chance to be given an extension.” I asked: “So, if someone just wanted to cruise around another season?” Their answer (after a sigh): “Every other factor would have to be exactly right…” (Referring to the extensive visa application process that includes proof of funds, background check, and etc, etc.)

At the time the visa extension is normally used for one or two 30-day extensions, but I’m not aware of – nor was my immigration contact – any cruisers who have tried to get three extensions. I mean, Portugal isn’t really that big, guys!

But, keep in mind, this particular visa extension gained in Portugal is NOT a Schengen Visa extension for the Schengen Area: the extension is for Portugal ONLY. If you are caught outside of Portugal with the Portugal extension, you will be in violation of the 90-day Schengen Visa.

So, how do you keep cruising after your 90-day in any 180-day is up? The Schengen Exile.

The Schengen Exile

Here’s how we dealt with our Schengen Exile:
We sailed from Ireland (outside Schengen) to France (in Schengen). We entered the Schengen Area in Brest, France. In Brest, we made certain we got our stamp into the Schengen Area stamped in our passports. We sailed down from France, Spain, Portugal, and Spain again. At the end of this time, we were getting pretty close to our 90-day limit, something like 83 days in the Schengen Area.

Then, we came to Gibraltar. (Gibraltar is the same as the UK: six months Visa-free for USA citizens.) We arrived to Gibraltar, and we had to go to the Frontier to have our into Gibraltar stamps put in our passports. This stopped the Schengen Visa clock with one week to go. So, now, we have to stay outside the Schengen Area for 90 days (technically, 90 minus one week because we were one week early). We are staying in Gibraltar for that entire period. (Maybe we bounce down to Morocco a time or two for a little variety, because it is outside Schengen Area, of course.) At the end of our “Schengen exile” we will be able to re-enter the Schengen area by getting a new Schengen Visa stamp in the passport. This will allow another 90 days of time.

Remember that 180 days rolling? We were in 83 days, then we stayed out 90. When we re-enter the Schengen Area, we will be chipping away at that time all the way back in March when we first came to France. And, we’re on our way to the USA, so we only need about 45 days of our second 90 day period to get out of the Canary Islands.

Conclusion

Confused much? Yeah, this stuff is thick. International law is really really complicated, but after looking at this stuff for years and years now, it actually does make sense. At least, it makes sense enough to know how to stay out of trouble.

The moral of the story is just don’t push it. Don’t try to outsmart the system just for a little fun or extra sailing time. The Schengen rules and enforcement of them are quite serious. It can mean your passport could get flagged at borders and denied entry. Some places will literally stamp a big “OVERSTAY” in your passport. The fines are serious. And/or you could be arrested and/or your boat impounded until it all gets straightened out!

Now, I suppose I should state that legal thing where I say, “I’m not a lawyer, so take this at your own risk.” I do hope it helps someone who is confused about how the Schengen Visa system works. And I hope that it will avoid some people getting in trouble in the future!

PS: The Schengen Visa a completely different situation from the EU VAT tax clock. That has nothing to do with you as a person, that has to do with your boat. For people who are interested in that, I can answer a few of those questions, too – email me. We don’t deal with it much because our EU VAT tax is paid. There is a fairly clear explanation here over at Noonsite. Their explanation of the Schengen Visa on the same page is slightly outdated, but it is accurate (practically speaking).

The departure of l’Hermione…

On journeys like this, one always tends to happen upon things…

There’s a heap of the usual information on the L’Hermione tall ship website (http://www.hermione2015.com/) but she’s out and about right now… so follow her AIS ping on MarineTraffic.

And, for that matter, follow us, too!

“What we need is here…”

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
~Wendell Berry

Ile-d’Yeu, France

Down blind alleyways, or the place at which the sky and the sea switch…

By: Noah D.

Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to go down dark alleyways? You don’t know what could be lurking behind the next corner!?

So much of cruising like this is made up of coming to terms with the unknown. I don’t care what website you look at for the weather, rarely do they agree and they are often accurate only to +/-5kts of windspeed. “Local conditions may differ.” Indeed.

The closest thing to clairvoyance is the Reed’s Almanac. I will rue the day we get out of its blue and gold reach: a day that is fast approaching with every south-facing passage. Without intending to sound like an advertisement, the Reeds Almanac is the best £64 I’ve spent in a long time… the random little ports and the off-path anchorages are hardly a mystery. Couple Reed’s with updated Navionics and, dang, no place is off limits to Proteus.

Or, rather, we know if the place is off limits to Proteus.

The Raz du Sein (pronounced; “Raah duh Seh”) is one more of those places in the Biscay that imbue it with is alarming reputation. For those who have no knowledge of the Atlantic Coast of France, perhaps it is better that you don’t – especially my friends and family that have misgivings about me sailing 7000 miles – but there is more freaky stuff around here than the Bermuda Triangle. One place, in particular, is the Raz, a tiny strait between the Ile-de-Sein and a promontory on the mainland. The Raz is a boat-eater: one of two, actually, within a few hundred miles of each other off this coast (the other is called the Rochebonne Plateau, a place marked on most charts as “AREA TO BE AVOIDED”).

The lesser of the two scaries is our new friend, The Raz. Less scary, I say, but definitely worthy of respect. The Raz is actually an underwater rock feature in which massive amounts of water bottleneck and run back and forth with each switch of the tide. Occasionally, the tidal current can flow at as much as 6kts to 8kts and throw an extremely confused sea. The ONLY time to cross it safely is the 30 minutes on either side of high or low water: the less-than-one-hour in which the tide is slack. (I should mention, by the way, that it takes about an hour to pass through.) On our first attempt from Brest, the wind was over tide and a swell was running north-south through the gate. Before we got too close, we realized the conditions were horrible and had to turn back east and make for Douarnenez.

For our next attempt, there was practically no storm swell coming in off the deep Atlantic and the wind was blowing across. We timed it within 15 minutes after sailing 18 miles from Douarnenez, made the gateway as if we were flushed down a drain, and parked ourselves at Audierne for a few hours of sleep before continuing south the next morning.

Having now done so many many miles in high latitudes, sailing in Force 5 and Force 6 is becoming somewhat of a norm. Even so, we don’t watch the anemometer hit upper-30’s very often. Squall after squall passed us. At the end of the day, we had a max gust hold at 39kts. It made for an exhilarating downwind run to Belle-Ile. Double reefs in both main and jib while running, Proteus held mid-7’s through the water for most of the day, getting us to Belle-Ile and into the locked basin with minutes to spare.

These are the days that break from any semblance of normalcy the days that – even at sea – are out of the ordinary. Moments when the sky is dark and the sea seems to be illuminating itself from beneath the boat. Moment where 10 foot walls of water approach from behind and gently slide beneath the transom. Moments when birds fly calmly by at eye-level in a perfect V-shape… only this time the wind is sustaining 32kts. Or moments miles out at sea when you can barely make out the top of the sails for all the rain and thick fog: “Is that an engine I hear? Maybe it is the vibration of the hull through the water?” The surreal is only real because it is right there in front of you, but if you were to write it down or interject it into story-time it might seem too fantastic to be true.

The monster of the sea is the sea itself. The stories of beasts in them thar waters, mateee, are cooked because the calm thing you see lapping the warm sand cannot be the same that eats ships without a trace. Of course it must be the Cracken! Of course it must be the Edge of the World! The Raz and its ilk cannot be conquered, only eased by when the monster turns over in his sleep. And upon Mother Earth with all her glorious nesting beasts becoming agitated from time to time, Proteus is making its way quietly along, its presence erased only moments after passing like the dim candle in the hallway held tightly against the draft.

Around Brest…

So much of sailing is waiting. Waiting for the wind to come down from 35kts. Waiting for the swell to be less than 15 feet. Waiting for a part to come in from somewhere. Waiting for some paperwork to be finished.

And, the shame of it is, when we are waiting on that storm system to pass, the storm system is on top of us. So our “off days” are usually accompanied by howling winds and likely not a small bit of rain.

We would be remiss, though, if we just sat on our hands and did nothing. In some of the more remote, exotic locations in Western Europe, we can find some really fascinating, un-touristy places. When you’re arriving on a boat, you come in through the back door. Tourists, arriving by car or train or plane, arrive to the billboards and manicured shrubbery and freshly planted flowers out of season. The ports are usually in the old section of town that smells of fish or wet wooden decking or nothing at all. Anything that blooms comes up naturally through the cracks in the cobblestones. And, like these old paving stones – and unlike the glass and steel airport architecture – almost everything has rounded edges worn by time and proximity to the sea.

The day the Sky set Paris on fire…

By Noah D.

The day the Sky set Paris on fire began like any other.

And just like any other, most people forgot about the Sky.

They went about their lives thinking that it was their own creations that rule the world: man-made towers of industry and commerce, that make the streets dark at noon and change the course of history. After all, they control the night! “It is not the moon’s rays that illuminate our stone canyons. Our light dominates the night!”

So, only a few noticed at first. Perhaps just the old men who work at thinking, or perhaps the girls with boys that bored them.

But in the evening, the Sky decided to remind all those below and sent his army of clouds encroaching from the west. Many feared Rain and cursed the Sky after such an otherwise beautiful day under the blue. Their important plans they made to sit in the terrace outside the cafes might be interrupted and they would have to move inside their secure walls instead.

“The Sky wouldn’t dare…” said they.

The gargoyles and the pigeons talked amongst themselves. They had not seen such from the Sky since a long time ago and worried what it would mean.

They knew they might not be smart enough to figure it out, but, being just gargoyles and pigeons, they were fairly certain they would survive anything that would come their way. They always have.

The Cathedral saw it coming first (as it often does in times like this). Those who created cathedrals like her were wise in their decisions to always let them keep an eye on the wests. They knew that even though the trouble might come from the easts, the Big Circle on which we live grows smaller each year: someday the west will be as close as the east.

The River, usually the last to know such things, could even feel the change and sent word downstream to ask the Sky what was going on; the River received no answer in time.

Expectation was everywhere while the people paraded by. None saw it. Or perhaps none cared.

And then it happened…