Vigo is the largest city in the Spanish province of Galicia. Located near the northwest tip of Spain, about 300k people call it home. While a big part of the economy is generated by a large auto plant, there’s also a significant amount of shipbuilding. So, Madrone’s crew also felt at home among the many shipyards and commercial boat traffic.
We chose Vigo as a landfall partly because of fair-ish winds for sailing and partly because its an official Port of Entry to Spain. When we left the Azores, we officially checked out of the EU in case the forecast would allow us to easily sail north to the UK. With an exit stamp in our passports, we also conveniently stopped the clock on our 90 day tourist visa to the EU. No problem, we thought when we headed for Vigo – we’ll just check back in when we arrive to restart the clock.
Once we dropped the anchor, we called port authorities in Vigo to make arrangements to check in. Unfortunately for us (and equally for the poor person on the phone with us), it wasn’t quite clear what to do with us – it turns out that foreign cruising boats don’t regularly make Vigo their first port of call when arriving from outside the EU.
The port representative recommended that we check into a marina and ask the marina office for help checking in. We did that, and the marina office recommended that we go to the local police station. So we walked across town to the police station and immediately confounded the friendly officer we asked for help.
After 4 or 5 phone calls, the police officer we spoke with found an email address for the port police. So we emailed the port police with an explanation of our situation.
After about 8 hours, we got a reply from the port police – even though we officially cleared out of the EU in the Azores, there’s no need for us to check back in as long as we don’t stay too long in Spain.
So, now we seem to be in some kind of immigration limbo, but at least it’s in a beautiful place with delicious food!
