Many American visitors to the United States Virgin Islands who deign to visit the British Virgin Islands, do so by making a day trip by ferry from St. Thomas. They arrive with camera and beach tote. Which is why Joe and I, disembarking from the ferry with 300 pounds of gear, were detained by BVI customs for over an hour.
When 4 duffels of sailing and diving gear, an eight foot long fishing pole case and monster backpacks containing film equipment unloaded with us, it inspired furrowed brows from the customs receptionist. If the 300 pounds of gear had not sufficiently jangled nerves, our stupid answers on our Immigration Admittance Forms were surely the clincher. "Filmmakers" we listed as our occupation, in our zeal to be cute and to embrace our hopeful retirement from our recent vocations. Apparently, the BVI tourist board does not appreciate uninvited film crews arriving on their sacred domain. It probably should not come as a surprise, given that the byline on the BVI license plate reads: "natures best kept secret". We were locked in a cabinet while customs tried to track down a Cultural Minister so he could personally question our motives.
Compounding our problem was our failure to pay attention to the form requirement that you list your birthdate European style, i.e date/month/year. This caused even more consternation and confusion than our alleged covert film ops, and we were forced to legibly redo the forms under the stern gaze of the customs agent, admonishing us repeatedly to use proper British date syntax.
We were then directed to Immigration for bag inspection where we were required to open and explain each bag...except for the eight foot long cylindrical black plastic case. The one that could easily be mistaken for a rocket launcher, particularly given that the logo emblazoned on the side translates as "Flaming Bazooka". That one they were not concerned about.
"Bazuka Pro Flambeau"
Julianne November 16th, 2016
