Lists, Lists, Lists and Boxes

As I type this we are 10 days from leaving for Europe for five months and….. still no word from the shipyard about the status of our boat (Decize)…

Lists!

Leaving our townhome for 5 months requires a lot of lists. Lots and lots of lists. Here is one to give you an idea. There is no way we could do this without lists. This is our Townhome list. We also have a Boat Box list, a Boat Supplies list, a Medical Supplies list, and a Final Day list. Just to name a few.

• Long stay (6 month) visa (Received)
• Set up sprinkler systems (Done)
• Car maintenance 30K miles (Done )
• Prep car for 5 months (Trickle charger/fuel stabilizer)
• Keys to Richard/Linda (Done)
• Keys to neighbors (Done)
• Program shades. (Done)
• Pay 2021 taxes! (Done )
• Back Gate lock – combination lock! (Done)
• Replace AC filters. (Done)
• Get copies of utilities (Electric and Gas) (Done)
• Medical Kit (Done)
• Practice packing (Done)
• Mail – Virtual Post Office (Done)
• Complete Itinerary to Richard/Linda/Francis (Done)
• Stop Newspaper (Done).
• Pack/ship boxes to marina (Done– Picked up May 10)
• Get latest (4th) Covid vaccine booster (Done – May 11).
• Notify neighbors that we will be gone (Done)
• Arrange lawn care (Done)
• Car Inspection (Done)
• Laptop backup
• Empty/clean fridge (last day)
• Drop cloths (for furniture)?? (Done)

We review the lists every few days and it looks like we are close to actually finishing some of them….

Boxes

We decided early on that with all the stuff we wanted to take to the boat we would need to either take extra luggage on the plane or ship stuff directly to the marina. We opted for the latter (neither of us relishes the idea of schlepping heavy luggage up and down stairs at the train stations).

After a little online research we settled on Sherpr , a company who promises you can “skip the hassle and ship your luggage & boxes ahead of time!” We started planning our boxes. As they say on their website “we make the customs process simple for you.” Maybe. We’ll see. We ended up with two boxes (medium sized boxes weighting about 40 lbs each) costing a total of about $350.

And the list of “Prohibited Items” is pretty extensive. I think my favorites are “Juice Liquid Living creatures” and “Christmas Crackers”. I’m not even sure what those are. And, of course, no “Pornographic material”… “of any kind!”.

The boxes were picked up by a UPS driver five days ago. A few days later we received a request from a UPS person in France (at least we think he/she was in France as the email was in French) for a signed “ATTESTATION DE NON REVENTE ” along with a copy of my passport. Basically swearing nothing in the boxes is for resale. Will update this post when and if the boxes arrive…

Box update: Our boxes arrived! We put Apple AirTags in our boxes and tracked their progress. After about a week they arrived in St Jean de Losne!

Decize… in the water? Oui ou Non?

And, ten days from departure, we still have no word from the shipyard about the status of our boat. Since Decize is our home for the next five months this is a little worrisome but we are hopeful….