The End of the Road

During our last week in America, we made and fitted three shipping boards to the truck, cleaned the truck inside and out, emptied the fresh, grey, black and hot water tanks, emptied and defrosted the fridge and freezer, charged the batteries and disconnected all non essential circuits, bought and packed two suitcases, and donated our Florida bought bicycles to charity. Thankfully we were not trying to arrange, the shipping and flight preparation from the side of the road, and had the generous hospitality of Fred and Denise in Arlington, and then Bill and Mary in Reston to make life easier for us.

In general shipping the truck back to the UK followed the same process as the outbound journey. Once again I booked the truck onto a K-line ship as they are the only line operating a transatlantic crossing via Southampton. NYK line operates a route via Liverpool, which whilst more convenient than the more commonly used European ports of Zeebrugge, Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Antwerp, is not as close to London as Southampton, and inevitably necessitates a trip to Liverpool. Once again I employed the services of NMT as shipping agent, partly because they did a good job on the way out, and partly as they remain one of the few agents with a presence on the east coast of America and at Southampton with experience in roro shipping.

A month before the proposed sailing date I contacted NMT and using the schedule that they sent me, gave them preliminary notice of my intention to put Jim on a specific sailing. With the exception of organizing shipping insurance, I then did nothing regarding shipping until five days prior to the scheduled sailing date, when I drove to Baltimore to drop the truck off at the docks. Learning from my experience at Brunswick last December, I did some research regarding port security prior to leaving Washington, and discovered that once again I would need a TWIC (Transport Worker Identification Credential) card to enter the docks alone. Therefore instead of driving straight to the docks, I first drove to A1 Escorts (not the kind of place you'd expect from the name) where I got all of the necessary photocopying done (five copies of the trucks registration papers, and a few copies of the delivery note prepared by NMT), and picked up a friendly escort who would escort me through the export procedure (and nothing else!).

Regardless of the requirement for an escort for security purposes, the process of just getting the truck to where it needs to be would be near impossible for a novice like me without assistance. The process at Southampton could easily be undertaken by a terrorist with severe learning difficulties, but at Baltimore this was far from true, and I was glad to have someone with me to show me the ropes. After about an hour spent at the docks, and with the security, export and shipping processes completed, I left Jim in his designated spot, with the key in the ignition, and the cab door unlocked. If it was sad on the way out, it was doubly sad this time around, and I had a hard time walking away from Jim after I had spent every night of the last 320 days sleeping, cooking and resting in him.

As on the outbound journey, the fact that the truck was not completely empty caused no problems (although it remains to be seen whether UK customs and Excise will be satisfied), but unlike the outbound journey I was not permitted to ship the truck with a tank of propane on board. I suspect that if I'd declared the propane tank at Southampton, I would have been told to remove it, but at Baltimore I was not given the opportunity to send it across the pond. Consequently I donated an almost full bottle of propane to the escort company.

After waving goodbye to Jim, I cheered myself up with a huge crab po-boy from Jimmy's Famous Seafood near Dundalk docks, hired a minivan to take Naomi, Boris, me, two suitcases and a giant air crate to the airport with, and drove back to Washington.

The flight home followed much the same protocol as the shipping in that it was very similar to the outbound journey, just more complicated. Flying two humans and two suitcases from America to England is of course extremely simple, but when you add a dog into the equation it becomes a little more complicated and a lot more expensive. We were aware that up to ten days in advance of the flight we needed to get a certificate of health stamped by a vet, but until we spoke to a local vet we were not aware of the requirement to get the vet's stamp ratified by the United States Department of Agriculture in the relevant state's capital. If we had had the foresight to visit a vet in the Maryland portion of the Washington DC metropolis, we could have visited the USDA office in DC, but we made the mistake of visiting a vet in the part of the city in Virginia, necessitating a 330 mile round trip to Richmond. In addition we also had to get Boris dewormed at the vet, and get the appropriate page in his passport stamped accordingly. On top of the visits to the vets, the process of getting Virgin Cargo to clear him for flying involved a huge quantity of paperwork, partly to ensure that they would not be responsible if our dog was returned to America by the UK customs officers whilst we waited patiently for him at Heathrow Airport.

Naomi, Boris and me are now safely back in the UK, homeless, jobless and largely destitute, but enjoying the company of our friends and family. When I've had the chance to gather my thoughts I'll write some posts detailing what worked and what didn't with Jim, and summarizing the major costs, complications and considerations for anyone else planning a similar trip.