Monday 5/30, we got an email update that our ship is still scheduled with an ETA of June 5-6, and a Victoria ETA of June 25-26. They even sent us our Bill of Lading and insurance info! Woo-hoo! Only a week to go. And a storm. 😳 Check out this forecast for Sunday morning 6/5 at 8:00am. We DO need THAT swirly thing to get out of the way before we load Island Girl!!!
Our ship is currently in the Florida straights between Key West and Havana Cuba, on her way to Savannah Georgia. She’s due in there on June 1. I sure hope she doesn’t get stuck in a Savannah vortex, and actually gets to come to Fort Lauderdale on schedule!
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5/31: E-mail update today said that we should be working with the Customs Agent in Victoria regarding the upcoming arrival of our boat. 😳 It’s getting real! Kenny called the Customs guy, and he sent us the paperwork to fill out to e-mail back.
At noon today, I could see our ship was north of Palm Beach, headed for Savannah. Our old ship is at the Panama Canal. Hmmm…it was just on Friday 5/27 that I saw it in Freeport Bahamas, so it only took four days to get to the Canal. That’s good info to know for future reference.
In the meantime, while we wait, I might as well enjoy the pool and make my Washingtonians jealous, since it’s raining and cool there (surprise, surprise!)
Wed. June 1 – it’s JUNE!!
I see our ship is still on her way to Savannah and should be there this afternoon. I’ve been searching the interweb to see if I can find the port shipping schedule for Savannah. Maybe if I can find the right thing, it will show me her Estimated Time Arrival and Estimated Time Departure. Her ETA into Savannah is today by 14:00 but I couldn’t find here ETD to see how long she’s actually scheduled to be there. I did find a page that shows ETD, but it will only show that once the ship is IN port. Hmmm.
HOWEVER, while searching, a shipping schedule for Port Everglades showed up in the search. I scoped that out and learned a lot of good stuff! I could actually look back at the Star Laguna to see what it did, and it showed this for her Port Everglades visit:
Arrival 5/24/22 1:25; Departure 5/26/22 16:50
So it was only in port on three calendar days (about 64 hours) and loaded 29 yachts.
THEN, I saw the info for our ship, the AAL GENOA: ETA 6/5/22 20:00, and ETD 6/7/22 12:00, at berth 22. 😳 She’ll only be in port for an expected 40 hours?! So I‘m guessing that we’ll load Island Girl no later than Tuesday morning?? 🤷♀️ Maybe we’ll get an update from CCYT today.
One thing that we’re hanging in the balance on, is flying back to Seattle. Airfares are CRAZY right now…. like a one-way ticket is anywhere from $500-1000 per person?! 😩Holy cow! We could just wait for the cheapest date after Island Girl is loaded, and since we need to rent a car to get to the airport anyway, we could fly out of any of several airports: Tampa, Sarasota, Ft Myers, Orlando. We even considered flying right out of Fort Lauderdale, but that would take everything going right on schedule. Ideally, we could load Island Girl onto the ship, take an Uber to the airport which is like five miles away from the port, and fly right out. But what are the chances that would get screwed up, right? We’d really like to make our camping trip with our kids & grandkids on the weekend of the 10-12 that has been planned and reserved since January! But – ? We are, and have been, at the mercy of the shipping schedule ever since March! But – it’s getting real close to actually happening now.
We’ve been watching the storm that is coming, and it is supposed to rain all weekend. We still need to take down the bimini canvas top and windows from the fly-bridge, which we planned to do the day before we load. But – it’s going to be super-soggy-wet all weekend. I suggested to the Captain that maybe we take a trip over there tomorrow (Thursday) morning and get all of that done before the rain starts tomorrow afternoon. He agreed that sounds like a good plan. We’ll get her all striped down and ready to go.
I checked the MarineTraffic website on our ship…. oh no! She stopped in the Savannah Anchorage -which is out in the Atlantic Ocean, because Savannah is up a river and they have to wait their turn to go in. It’s like Savannah’s waiting room, and that seems to be where ships get behind schedule. 😬 Maybe she’ll move up the river tonight.
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Thursday June 2- We got up early and were actually out of the driveway before 8:00 to make the 210 mile drive to Ft Lauderdale. The forecast showed a 50% chance of rain starting at 1:00, so we want to get there and get the canvas down before the rain. Before we left, I checked the status of AAL GENOA, and she was actually docked in Savannah. YAY! But I couldn’t find anything on-line that would indicate what her scheduled departure was. Oh well.
We arrived at Island Girl’s dock, and all looked good. There was one bumper/fender that had fallen into the water and it’s line was wrapped around the oyster loaded piling. We were at high tide, and it was really stuck with no slack on the line at all. Throughout the day as the tide went out, I tried to free it to no avail. Finally, I got a rope around it’s line and pulled it up tight. Kenny taped a razor knife to the end of the dock pole and cut the fender away from it’s own line. He guided it back to the swim step and it retrieved it from the water. Whew! A new line is much cheaper to replace compared to the $100+ for a new fender.
We worked at getting all of the canvas and windows down from the fly bridge. Kenny got them down, and I laid them all out flat with bankets between them on our bed. All canvas and window coverings have to be off, so I removed our white windshield covers (after this picture) too. She looks so naked!
My next chore was to take inventory of any liquor that we have on board to declare on our Customs form. I was in the process of doing that, and Kenny announced that we had a loading date and time!! WOO-HOO!!!
What?! Load at 18:30 on Sunday 6/5? Last I saw on the Port Everglades shipping schedule was that AAL GENOA was scheduled to arrive on Sunday at 20:00! HUH!? 🤔 Maybe we’ll be one of the first boats loaded. Maybe we’ll get loaded down in the hold! That would be nice! So I checked the P.E. shipping schedule again, and NOW it says the GENOA is scheduled to arrive on Saturday 6/4 at 20:00!! Sweet! We be doing a happy dance, baby!!
We finished up our chores and got things secured and strapped down, including the bikes and table.
Loose and heavy items are removed from cabinets and drawers and packed into boxes that will ride on the floor. Cabinets and drawers are taped closed. Man – it has taken a LOT of work and time to secure everything for the high seas!
Even our bathtub is full of stuff, with loose pillows and bedding on top.
We got everything done and it didn’t even start to sprinkle until about 4:00, so then we headed home. We have a big storm coming this weekend, so everything is going to be wet, wet, wet. It poured down rain for a good portion of our drive. We’re hoping the storm doesn’t delay the ship’s arrival and that it will calm down by Sunday for our loading process.
Once we got home, I got about the business of finding us an airplane ride back to Washington. YIKES! Prices from $450 and up, one-way, per person! Sheesh! Fortunately, we have frequent flier miles just sitting and waiting for this opportunity, so I booked us flights on Tuesday out of Orlando. That’ll give us an extra day, just in case something gets messed up with the ship.
Now to start getting the house ready for hurricane season, and get ourselves ready to be gone for the rest of the summer. YIPEE!!!