Tag Archives: Agadir Marina

Importing Parts into Morocco by Eric Rigney, 2018

October 18, 2018

While preparing to leave Agadir Marina, I found our Yanmar freshwater pump leaked beyond repair and needed replacement.  With only 7 Schengen days left on our visa and Spain’s Canary Islands at high season with packed marinas, I decided to take my chances with what I read was a difficult Moroccan Customs. First my experience, then how I should have done it.

Morocco does not allow yacht owners to import parts free of duty “yacht in transit” unless the part is coming in as part of an insurance claim and the yacht’s insurance agency works with one of the many pre-approved Moroccan insurance partners.  Although the US vendor was cheaper, I privately ordered a pump, bolts, plus a spare and all gaskets from dieselpartseurope.com $825 US. Both DHL and FedEx have offices in Agadir.  Dieselpartseurope.com shipped FedEx, 3-4 days, Netherlands to Agadir for $165. Within 48 hrs, the packaged arrived in Casablanca where Customs held it.

Packages above $20 do not transfer within Morocco automatically, and having clients refuse to pay customs fees, FedEx will no longer accept in advance on your behalf and pass on the charges to the recipient at acquisition. Note also that mechanical parts costing more than $1,360 (including freight, insurance, tax), must come with an additional importation permit. Two days after the package arrived in Casablanca, I received a FedEx notification of Customs’ withholding. I called FedEx Casablanca for clarification.  I’m glad I speak some French.  FedEx offered me three options: come to Casablanca and deal with it by myself, hire a broker to deal with it on my behalf, or pay FedEx $60 to broker it on my behalf. I opted for the latter. They asked for a copy of my passport, a copy of the invoice with my ‘ship to’ name and marina address, a photo image of the parts, and a parts description in French. I lost an additional two days due to some minor inconsistencies with my invoice, but fortunately dieselpartseurope.com and I were in similar time zones and they made the necessary modifications. Then FedEx Casablanca asked for a bank transfer to cover the Customs’ costs (23.5% ++, of total invoice including taxes, freight, packing, and insurance), $275. FedEx Casablanca would not accept a credit card. As an American, not easily able to transfer funds as the rest of Europe does, I discovered I could instead pay the FedEx office in Agadir. I paid in cash but I think the Agadir office might have accepted a Visa credit card. Two days later, Casablanca had the package.  The next day they shipped it to Agadir and the next day it arrived, 12 days after it arrived in Casablanca. I then had to pay FedEx a Customs’s storage fee based on weight and duration of $17, not FedEx’s charge.

Water intake pump!

Recommended procedure: contact FedEx or DHL office Agadir in advance for a list of recommended brokers and see how much they charge, or deal directly with Agadir’s FedEx or DHL in advance and pre-arrange payment options, asking them to alert you ASAP of customs duties, taxes, and fees owed.  Exchange with a representative’s contact information, phone and email.  Provide them with the tracking number, a copy of your passport, the invoice, photos of the parts, description of the part in French and why you need them.  Make certain the “Ship to” invoice is to your name, with the marina as an address, not the recipient. My hope would be that by doing this in advance, you’ll save 5-7 days.

One more option: go through the commercial Yanmar dealer in Agadir.  They’re located in the commercial port where foreigners don’t have access, but Youssef Ajewher, a kind local yacht service person, a former merchant ship engineer, working privately at Agadir marina would be glad to assist you. The Yanmar dealer is said to provide you with a quote including freight, time frames, and customs’ costs estimates within 2-3 days.  I didn’t go this way only because on day 1, I had a quote in hand from dieselpartseurope.com, with FedEx 3-4 day.  I don’t know what the cost or experience would have been had I waited for the quote from the Agadir Yanmar dealer.  I may have jumped too soon. I do not know.

Agadir Marina Yacht Services : Youssef Ajewher

+212 (0) 6 77 45 68 87,  aj************@gm***.com

Youssef Ajewher, +212 (0) 6 77 45 68 87
aj************@gm***.com

Eric Rigney, s/v Kandu, Agadir, Morocco

Leslie’s Letters from Agadir Marina, Morocco

Dear Jeff (Jeff Jordan is a high school friend whose second job is traveling the world and may be joining us as a line handler in the Panama Canal),

Actually, we don’t know if Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca is still owned by an American…we never looked. We enjoyed very much our experience there. It maintains an international flavor. We went upstairs to watch the ‘Casablanca‘ film for 15 minutes. I had never seen it. BTW – did you know that the Casablanca movie was never filmed in Morocco? Eric believes it was filmed entirely in Southern California.

Rick’s Cafe Interior, Casablanca, Morocco
Bryce & Leslie Rigney at Rick’s Cafe, Casablanca Morocco

The exterior of the restaurant was nondescript same as most buildings we have seen in French Polynesia, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Eritrea, Egypt, Sudan, and now Morocco. We have discussed that matter with locals and their feeling is this: they don’t want to draw attention to their dwelling on the outside because they don’t want others to know their actual wealth and to steal from them or to expect unearned generosity. Today, a Moroccan gentleman explained to us: “If your neighbor needs something, you are compelled to give it to them over your own needs; your neighbor takes precedence over yourself and your own family.” Yet in my mind, we are all human, aren’t we? Such generosity is difficult to conjure even in myself. Sigh!

Marina Agadir promenade entrance

We’re finding Agadir great. Now that we are forced to remain here to await special bolts and a new water intake pump for the engine, we are finding Morocco more and more charming – desert dust and all. Sadly, the more time we’re spending inside the city (out of the resort areas) we’re experiencing a lot more beggars and homeless. Such an interesting human/global problem since forever, I think. My parents related  during their five weeks with us that San Francisco is becoming quite the pit of filth, drug addicts and rampant homelessness. Not good for attracting international tourism!!!

Richie’s Cafe: Surf haven just South of Aourir road marker K11.

We have meet wonderful people and not so wonderful people as we travel. At a local surf hangout called Richie’s located at highway marker K11 on the beach just south of Aourir (30 min busride north from Agadir), we met a wonderful young woman serving tables. For not ever having lived outside her country, her English and accent is excellent!!! I was so impressed with her and her artistry that we invited her to our boat and then she invited us to her home to share couscous. Hadjar’s generosity was so great that she insisted on giving us one of her paintings. Wow! We gave her a couple things too, but her favorite was a California flag!

Hadjar Elmajid’s gift: Saharan women
Hadjar: a California fan!

Freelancing at Marina Agadir, we met a wonderful Muslim gentleman, Youssef Ajewher, a retired military ship engineer who provides yacht services. Along with many boat maintenance issues, he has also provided us many personal services too.

Youssef Ajewher, +212 (0) 6 77 45 68 87
aj************@gm***.com

He helped me locate and visit a woman’s health/dermatologist (Clinique IBN SINA Avicenne) for some black spots that I was nervous about on my chest thinking they might be the beginnings of cancer – which the kindly middle-aged female dermatologist declared were deep seated blackheads and removed with a bit a trouble having to use her scalpel to cut open the skin. She did a good job and now, most importantly, I am no longer worried. We spend so much time in the sun, that I want to make sure to catch things early on. I was nervous about waiting 8 months to return home before addressing the issue.

On the other hand, we had a little issue with our laundry. I was so upset, I wrote a story about it in the raw the day the day I got back the laundry…couldn’t bear to go out for 24 hours as I felt personally attacked. Waiting a few days, yesterday, with Youssef, we took 5 ruined pieces back to the cleaner and presented them to the owner. He was apologetic. The man who had enacted the damage was there too, shamefacedly. The owner said he would try to mend them wanting us to come back in a couple days. I forgive the naughty man now, but at the time I was thoroughly put-out.

Pressing Alwafa, Agadir, Rue d’Essaouira opposite Soulaymane Restaurant – Damaged clothes!

Since we are waiting around, we have made arrangements to take a bus to Marrakesh, the capital city of Morocco, on Monday with a reservation through www.booking.com at an inexpensive yet decent centrally located Riad (old private home turned into a Bed’n Breakfast: Riad Chennaoui) – for two nights. Our 2 new water intake pumps (2ndone is a spare), ordered from the Netherlands, will arrive sometime on Wednesday. Eric will get busy replacing the pump (he’s become quite the mechanic!) while I get to work cleaning, laundry in a bucket, etc. Bryce has some chores too to keep Kandu looking ship-shape. If all goes efficiently with shipping and customs, the plan is that we depart in a week or so for the Canary Islands.

Kandu in Marina Agadir

Truly, moving from one culture to the next is always exciting yet a little daunting. I was nervous coming back to a Muslim country after our difficult experience in Egypt…which we haven’t really wrote about yet…I’m still too raw and I don’t want to sound mean nor like a spoiled brat, which sometimes I see myself as when wandering around poorer countries. Sigh….again!

Leslie