After being stuck in Palermo for a bit longer than we had planned for we were finally ready to leave Italy towards Tunisia.
The final step was to get our passports stamped out and discharge The Dream from Italian waters, so with the directions in hands we left Sitimar Marina by foot and walked towards the Cruising ships terminal for our first stop, to find the Commissariato Polizia di Stato (immigration office) to take care of our passports.
The immigration department was easy to find and the officers spoke enough English to make things easy, however, we ended up having to wait for half an hour for the guy to finish his coffee and chit-chat with colleagues before getting things done.
It’s the Mediterranean pace, and we need to learn to live with it.
We explained the situation of the illegible stamp we had received in Alghero upon checking in, showed the declaration that office had provided confirming the details of the stamped and date of arrival (we had stapled it to the passport page where the stamp was) and all was ok, no fuss.
Next stop was Guardia Costiera - Capitenerie di Porto (coast guard - harbourmaster) close by.
When we arrived at the main entrance we noticed their nice working hours: Monday to Thursday from 9.30 to 12.00, Tuesday and Wednesday from 15.00 to 16.00 and Fridays from 9.30 to 11.30.
We were a bit too early but not sure if this was the right place so we rang the bell, but the person that answer didn’t speak any English and with the insane noise from the cars passing in the avenue we didn’t manage to really understand what the officer said so we waited and waited for the opening hours, this was when suddenly an officer showed up and very politely explained that we needed to enter through the back entrance, the gate on the other side of the building instead of what looked like the main entrance for the building. We followed the instructions, waited for our turn and when we showed the documents that needed to be stamped and returned so that the boat could be discharged the officers that were taking care of us didn’t seem very sure of what we were doing there, but after a phone call to a superior we finalised the process and were told we needed to depart within a couple of hours and without delay. With a copy of the discharge documents, we returned back to The Dream and cast out towards Tunisia.
We were once again going to North Africa, to another off the beaten track destination!
Guardia Costiera - Palermo
Capitenerie di Porto
Via Francesco Crispi, 153
Phone +39 091 604 3111
Commissariato Polizia di Stato - Palermo
Calata Marinai d’Italia
Phone +39 091 605 6411
*Costituto - Arrival document issue to non-Schenghen flagged vessels in Italian waters
***In the spirit of sharing our dreams and experiences we have shared this blog post in the NOFOREIGNLAND.COM website sailors community. In this post you can find information regarding check in and out procedures with location for the Port Police and Immigration