What do you do at night during a passage?

At night you have to continue to drive the boat just as you do during the day.  Someone has to watch out for freighters and other boats - or anything that might be coming by.  Erin and I just take it in shifts.  We are planning two four hour shifts at night, but we may change it if we don't think that works well for us.   It really comes down to this:  You can see a tanker ship some 6 miles away.  A freighter traveling at 25 knots (with us moving towards it at 8 knots) means a net closing speed of 33 knots.  Obviously, 33 knots per hour means about 1 nautical mile per every 2 minutes.  That means a tanker six miles away might take about 12 minutes before it could hit us.  Thus whoever is on watch needs to scan the horizon every 10 minutes to keep us safe.

When you get to a foreign country, how do you check in?

Generally, when you arrive in a foreign country you are not allowed ashore until immigration and customs matters have been settled.  We can say more after we have done it a few times, but the practice goes like this: 

1.  Show up in an official "clearing in" spot (port of entry).

2.  Raise a yellow "quarantine" flag.  This is a signal to the officials that you are in quarantine and awaiting inspection/clearing in.

3.  The captain goes ashore and checks in.  This entails making sure customs are satisfied (no contraband aboard), immigration is satisfied (YOU are allowed to be in the country - this could mean getting a visa), the agricultural inspectors are happy (sometimes they take your fresh veggies and/or meat), and that your boat is allowed in the country for a period of time with no tax consequences (cruising permit).  After all this is done, you can go back to your boat, lower the yellow quarantine flag and raise a "courtesy" flag.  This is a small copy of the flag of the country you are visiting.  When you fly the courtesy flag, any new customs official or coast guard that you meet already knows you have checked in and passed inspection so they don't have to do it again!  Obviously this procedure is easier in some places than others ....