Marina was closed for rediculous reasons! ( updated)

Looking for the borderpatrol checkpoint
Text: Helen Raiend, Navigaator magazine

For the guests arriving to Haapsalu by boat on 2008 summer the situation was rather sad: on the piers and home page of the Haapsalu city’s only marina there were big signs in red – the marina will be closed for this season. Why? The reasons are brought out below.

Prologue

Grand Holm Marina wishes to apply for a port certificate and therefore summons the government committee. The committee comes to Grand Holm Marina and issues a few precepts that must be met before the marina can openened for traffic: The Marina have to grant the access to the international borderpatrol checkpoint through its basin. Grand Holm Marina firmly declares: there is no checkpoint neither at Grand Holm Marina nor the neighboring plots, and never has been and therefore this order cannot be executed.

What is the truth? Navigaator magazine starts to look into the matter.

1. From the Annex 3 of the Regulation of the Government of the Republic on “The Border Checkpoints Open for International Traffic”, that the location of Haapsalu checkpoint is Haapsalu marina (entered into force on March 30, 2008).
2. Since the annex does not provide the address of Haapsalu marina, we search the Port Register of the Maritime Administration, as on March 31, 2008. There is no marina under that name in Haapsalu. There are three ports – the Port of Haapsalu, Grand Holm Marina and Westmer Port and to our knowledge only Grand Holm Marina is a marina and a guestharbour and was operational at that time.
3. Is the checkpoint located at the Port of Haapsalu, the name of which is somewhat similar? We ask from the Border Guard Administration and receive a reply that the checkpoint open for international ship traffic is located at the address of Holmi 14. That is not the address of the Port of Haapsalu.
4. Our data is absolutely different. In order to confirm these, we read from the Riigi Teataja that at the address of Holmi 14 there is Veskiviigi Port of Haapsalu, still was in the planning stage and cannot therefore be opened for ship traffic as yet.
   Can it really be that a checkpoint opened for international traffic is situated in a non-existent port?
5. We decide to visit the spot and verify the existence of the checkpoint, since only one’s own eyes are to be trusted. Before that we check from the State Borders Act, what a checkpoint must be like. From the § 10 clause 1 we can read that a checkpoint is “a delimited and marked part of a road section or water body, or of the construction works and territory of a railway station, airport, river, lake or seaport which is open for international traffic and where border control and other control related to border crossing is performed.”
6. We set out on the search for “a delimited and marked part of the construction works and territory.”
7. Nothing. Even at Holmi 14 in the former soviet yachtclub we cannot find anything resembling a checkpoint. We ask from the local sailors who say that in the previous years the border control has been formalized at pier close to the Border Guard camp and that only in exceptional cases the officials have come elsewhere to formalize the papers.
8. Inquiries to the Border Guard Administration confirm our impression of nothingness. They tell us that “the Border Guard has no space of their own at Haapsalu Marina.” The formalizing and checking takes place onboard of the vessel coming in or going out of the marina.
   Hmh, but as far as we know, Haapsalu yacht club has no marina.
   And still why Border Guard think , address of the checkpoint and Haapsalu marina is the yachtclub at Holmi 14. Are these the data from the days of the fishing kolkhoz?
   The question arises, whether the Board Guard do not know the location of the checkpoint or they do not want to certify the place where they have been formalizing the border crossings for years? It would be exciting to know when and for what reason they last visited the Haapsalu yacht club and how many formulations they are planning to make in the next 10 years under the conditions of the Schengen visa regime.
9. Since we haven’t found any checkpoint so far, our eyes turn to the Grand Holm Marina as the only marina here… and hooray! Have we really discovered the checkpoint???!!!
   See the picture!
10. And finally we discovered the address of former Haapsalu Yachtharbour or Haapsalu Marina too. From the pilotbook of Estonian Maritime Administration: the coordinates are 58˚57,5`N 23˚31,6`E, which actually situated in the Grand Holm Marina!

But because of the such discovery and since there still no borderpatrol checkpoint and since the fraud over this checkpont never went through, the authorities decided to close such checkpoint at all. We are in Schengen now.

Finally, even the court decided, that Haapsalu yachtharbour i.e. Haapsalu marina never existed de jure, but de facto was actually situated in the basin where Grand Holm Marina is today. The Court also decided, that borderpatrol checkpoint has never existed there, nor in the neighbourhood.

However, it never stopped the authorities to demand a safe passage to nowhere. And this demand has never been cancelled, even after Grand Holm Marina dredged channel with sufficiant depth through its own basin and around its piers.

The irony is, that access to the neighbouring Veskiviigi marina ( Veskiviigi marina was born 6 month later, after demand for passage was imposed by the authorities) is still in the planning stage and not a single boat has ever asked for passage to there through Grand Holm Marina.

However, Grand Holm Marina is fully opened for navigation and all piers are still there!