Nothing Beats to Windward Like a 747
01 November 2009 | Halifax, NS
Beth / 16 C !!!
Thanks to Jeannie Lea (Estelle) for the title of this posting. She's got it exactly right.
We've been enjoying our last couple of weeks in Halifax as we look forward to our sailing season starting again. It's funny; once we made that decision to ship Madcap to the Chesapeake and start our cruising from there, we have known it was the right decision without any second guessing. We finished painting our new deck, I got the spring bulbs planted, Jim caught up on mountains of paperwork that he had thought he'd have to do on the boat, and we had a little more time to enjoy the sights and sounds of Halifax and our family. The delay is perhaps all for the best because both Jim and I have been feeling some aches and pains - his knee and my back and hip - and we were able to get those problems addressed while we've been home. Now it is time to get back on that boat and on our way to warm weather.
It has been an interesting experience getting Madcap ready for her trip too so we haven't been bored! Jim spent several hours doing the paperwork. After repeatedly trying to find the correct form he managed to locate it and got all the pertinent information filled in. (The agent told him on the phone that he needed Form 3299 - Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles. He looked up the file on the computer and downloaded the one labelled 3299. The one that came up was form 3229 - Certificate of Origin. Eventually he managed to find 3299 through some other search and got it filled in.) He contacted a broker and was told that we don't need to hire one because we are just passing through the US. It was nice of them to tell us that. Jim has called Dept of Homeland Security several times to check on specific questions because we don't want any hassles at the border. We are OK with provisions on board; (we took off all fresh produce and anything perishable.) Our wine/beer supply is OK. (It is not large anyway because we plan to stock up in the US.) We gave a pretty thorough inventory of all articles on board - books, provisions, electronic equipment - in hopes that it saves time and lessens complications for the driver.
We will get our cruising permit in Baltimore so we'll be legal once we get in the water. It was in Baltimore that we had such good fortune getting a new permit on our way back up the coast in 2008 so we're happy to be able to deal with the same folks.
Madcap will be launched at Zahnisers Marine in Solomon's Island on Wednesday (we hope) and we will be there ourselves by then. We fly Halifax to Baltimore on Monday and then will stay a couple of days with Carole and Richard (Kilissa) - just up the creek from the marina. We'll get all the loose bits put back together, the sails on, some fresh food on board and we'll be set to go again.
I'll let you know if it all works as planned!!