Where's my parcel now?
17 November 2013
Well I must say I was a might disappointed with the certificate from the small ships registry office that we had been waiting for for almost two weeks. It found us here in DR courtesy of a Fedex courier, clutching a parcel we had been tracking via the wonders of the internet as it made it's journey from Kent in England to us.
Isn't technology wonderful. I don't know about you but I just find it fascinating to be know exactly where your wee baby is as it wings it's way across the planet. Now of course I know it's not exactly a baby, or even a pet, but you get some sort of emotional attachment to this bit of paper, that you haven't even seen yet. I get to hope it's not too lonesome and it has lots of other parcels and letters to cosy up to on it's journey.
Our baby started it's adventure being collected from Jackies daughters house in Canterbury, popped in a Fedex van and that's where we were able to start our relationship as this move was logged on the Fedex website and our own personal track your package page.
Next entry is 16 50Sittingbourne office, and then to Stanstead airport 20 54. In the dead of night, 1am she's at 30,000ft crossing the Atlantic, with instructions of how to use her life jacket which I suppose all parcels will have in case of them having to ditch at sea.
Due to the time difference between us and the UK it's only 8pm so we go to bed unsure of where our baby will be when we wake up. Next morning the first thing we do before having even our first cup of tea is to find out what's happened overnight.
00 07am,Memphis, she made it to Memphis Tennessee, long distance information give me Memphis Tennessee, Chuck Berry floats across my sleepiness, Where ever next. Next,03.38 she's left Memphis flying to god knows where, that the tracker never tells you which kinda adds to the fun of the game, although at the same time can prove to make you a little anxious.
A few hours later we find she's completely missed us in DR and has landed in Puerto Rico at 09.02, which ironically is where our small ship is. She's now in San Juan, capital of PR. Oh no, they must have forgotten to put her off in DR, we think, she'll end up back in the States. But no, next entry says 13.38 in transit, our baby is now in Santiago in the DR and being transferred to a Fedex office, at 17.35, no doubt for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.
She's almost here, the excitement is almost unbearable as we see that she is now in a vehicle with a courier and being shipped to Puerto Plata, only one hour away. The penultimate entry to our tracking log tell us she's now in transit 08.28 to the receivers address, us. Imagine our joy when just after breakfast, 10.04 a man with a Fedex suit arrives at our door with our baby. I sign some electronic pad with a plastic pen that doesn't really do my long honed signature justice, and take our baby in my arms, running in to show Jackie.
Of course we're expecting to find inside a big scroll on vellum with one of those big red wax seals, all written in illuminated hand written text by some monk who works in the small ships registry office, painstakingly producing these important documents. So you can imagine our disappointment when all we find is an A5 laminated, pre-printed bit of paper. All that waiting, and worrying, all that tracking, to be honest we feel a little deflated.
Anyway after another cup of tea, and time to realise that perhaps the world has moved on from scrolls and vellum, we're delighted to see our names and the name Picaroon, hull number 596445 registered to us, by the Registrar of shipping and seamen.