Day 62 Friday, August 23

Day 62  Friday August 23 – Sarnia once again

Well we awake at Roma’s house for a day of running errands before heading north to put the car to bed.  It will be a busy one as we have been saving errands up for when we have a car, and boy does a car make errands so much easier.



Packing again!

First item was gather up the paper work we need Glenn and Solange Woods the previous owner to sign as we are going to see them tomorrow.  While I am doing this Julie is getting Ross’s and her tax returns together as they are getting reviewed and have to submit their receipts.   Then we are sorting through our stuff that is in Sarnia as we are grabbing a few things we missed and packing the rest up to go to Sudbury.  Around 10 o’clock we jump in the Miata and head off for some car errands.  Fun to be back in the Miata.   First stop is the boat to check to see how she made it through the night, no problems there.  Next stop was a ship chandler where we pick up an impeller for the boats diesel engine, some charts for the next leg of our journey and CO2 cartridge for one of our life jackets.  After this stop we head for the boarder.  We figure we can stop in at the customs office and figure out what we need for us and the boat to get into the USA.  At the crossing we quiz customs agent about what we need, he is not completely sure but figures we will need an I68 and a cruising permit.  To get an I68 we will need passport photo which he suggests we pick up in Port Huron and then stop in at the main office to apply on the way back to Sarnia. 

We get the photos done, pick up some items for the boat and are back at the crossing for 2.  Our Customs officer which we get is helpful but has never been asked what is needed for a cruising boat to enter the US for an extended period of time.  He thinks we need an I68 so has us fill out the paper work while he reads the US Customs website, however we need 3 passport pictures and we only got ourselves 2.  On the back of the I68 application, Julie notices that it only allows you to stay in the USA for 72 hours so we point this out to him.  He goes back to scanning the website (which Julie has already done and found it not very helpful), and then decides to enlist the help of his supervisor.  Meanwhile we are standing around and someone starts to “roll” that is not supposed to so lots of customs officers start running for the door and pounding out.  We wondered if we should duck.

Our officer returns and decides to send us over to another person in another building.  He is very apologetic and escorts us across the parking lot.  Here he hands us over in a regretful fashion that he could not solve our questions.  Officer number 2 seems to have a grip on what we need and within 10 minutes we have a 1 year cruising permit stamped authorizing us and Jazzebelle into the country.  We still may need to present ourselves often but for now we seem official.  He also provided us with a decal application for the boat which only costs like $27.  The cruising permit was free and no pictures needed so we were very happy.  By now it is 4:00 and we headed back to Canada.  We were munching back salads at Roma’s by 5:00 and shortly thereafter family started appearing to say hello and good-bye to us.  Julie was happy to see everyone especially when Alicia and Alex appeared as they had Cassie in tow for a visit.  Cassie was very excited to see us and danced around. At the end of the evening though she was quite content to hop back in the car with Reggie, Bentley, Alicia and Alex.  We know she is being well looked after and having fun.

Cheers

Dawson and Julie