by Rolf
Wow - that many boxes. I guess Next Life will sink as soon as she hits the water.
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| This is the chaos in our basement a few days before our shipping date |
Over the last few weeks we had unloaded The Kid in preparation for her sale. The usable items from her moved into a big heap in our basement - secondary anchor, chain, ropes, lines, shackels, screws, bolts, fuses, cables, tools, boat hooks, towels, cups, plates, cutlery, baking forms, ... - you name it. Several hundred individual items.
A see-through box loaded with odds and ends - The red ring contains a tool to pull cables through walls and conduits. We will be installing a lot of electrical equipment ourselves. Pulling cables through difficult spaces is not a fun thing to do.
Over the last months I spent endless nights researching the Internet for equipment for Next Life. Just researching which water maker to get took weeks. With all this work we accumulated a water maker, ice maker, invert/charger, solar charger, battery monitor, VHF Radio, Honda generator, kitchen mixer, vacuum, toaster.
During Internet research process I started a thread on the Cruisersforum. You can take a look here. It is the most popular recent thread in the Lagoon section. http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f139/purchasing-and-commissioning-70969.html I also made contact with Gonzalo and Karina from Spain. They are getting their Lagoon 450 at the same time as we do. Since November we have been sending each other several emails a week discussing to cons and pros of all things boat.
X minus one - 15 of February, came and we rented a UHAUL trailer to pack all the boxes. First they had to be moved from the basement up the stairs into the garage. Who needs fitness machines when you can lug about 800 kg in 31 boxes up the steep stairs from the basement to the garage.
Then all boxes had to be labelled, listed, documented by picture and then loaded into the trailer. Silke did this really well, as she took Chester to a vet-appoinment - leaving me alone. This was one of the several pet appointments to be allowed to travel with the pets to dozens of countries in one year. So I was left to my own devices. Needles to say that in the rush I would mislabel boxes, (I had two with the same number on my list), forget to take pictures, have conflicting entries in my list, and all the other surprises that Murphy has up his sleeves. On average I packed every box twice into the trailer. In my wisdom I put the heaviest ones way up front to make it more exhausting to schlepp them in and out and in again.
The collection of boxes awaiting being packed twice
Silke returned on cue, just as I closed up the trailer, only to find that there was still one more box in the basement, and did I tell you that the trailer was full - as in no more space. Then we had to write up the packing list and email it to the shipper in Vancouver. We made it just after they had quit for the day. Perfect timing.
Next morning we left for the ferry hoping that we could sort things out with the shipper as we travelled on the ferry to Vancouver - and we did.
The next little hurdle we mastered was to stack the boxes in the most space saving (we are paying by space) manner on two pallets in a short time, as - you guessed it right - it started raining and the boxes were in danger of falling apart before they even made it into the warehouse. Beside us somebody was picking up a shipment which consisted of content with some soggy pieces of cardboard still managing to hang on to it. I forgot to take a picture, as it looked so comical - at least from our side.
We are praying the guy with the forklift comes fast before it all falls apart in the rain
And finally - all boxes are safely in the ware house and out of the rain. Now we just cross our fingers that they make it to Les Sables d'Olonne in good shape and on time.
