Arrival and Unloading of Blue Cerbera

or…

Nothing’s ever easy, but this is as good as it gets!

Vessel Name	Lloyd's Register Number	Built	Capacity (teus)	Flag	Owned Status
PROVIDENCE BAY	9080613	1994	4230	GB	Owned by P&O Nedlloyd
Port	Arrival			Departure
THAMESPORT, ENGLAND	FRIDAY		27-JUL-2001	SATURDAY	28-JUL-2001
ROTTERDAM, HOLLAND	SUNDAY		29-JUL-2001	MONDAY	30-JUL-2001
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA	TUESDAY		31-JUL-2001	WEDNESDAY	01-AUG-2001
NEW YORK, NY	THURSDAY		02-AUG-01	FRIDAY	03-AUG-01
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA	SATURDAY		04-AUG-01	SATURDAY	04-AUG-01
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA	MONDAY		06-AUG-01	MONDAY	06-AUG-01
MANZANILLO, PA	FRIDAY		10-AUG-01	FRIDAY	10-AUG-01
CRISTOBAL	SATURDAY		11-AUG-01	SATURDAY	11-AUG-01
LOS ANGELES	FRIDAY		17-AUG-01	SATURDAY	18-AUG-01
OAKLAND	SUNDAY		19-AUG-01	MONDAY	20-AUG-01

I learnt my container was arriving on Sunday, August 19^th, but that US Customs had placed a USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) “hold” on my container. This meant that it had to be inspected by USDA officials before it would be released. After getting all the other paperwork sorted, I had to call the USDA about 10 times and wait on hold for hours, but eventually I was given an appointment at 2.30pm on Monday, only to find out that the trucking company could not provide a truck until Tuesday. After a mad scramble, another trucking company was found and arrangements made.

So off I went to the terminal to meet the truck. When he arrived and presented the Delivery Order, it was not accepted because the original trucking company’s name had been crossed out and his name penciled in. This was not “official,” so we dashed outside and went to an office and asked to use the fax machine. Then we had a new Delivery Order faxed to us from the shipping company, with the correct trucking company’s name typed in. This allowed us to finally get a delivery ticket, which told us what kind of container it was and where to go to pick it up.

Before getting to the container, the truck had to go to another yard and find the right kind of trailer chassis for the container. After zipping around in my car which I had managed to sneak into the terminal, we eventually found one, directed the truck to it, and snagged it just before another trucker came roaring in, looking for the same thing! Now it was time to go find the container and wait for the crane to load it. This took over an hour!

The blue container that the car came in was at the top of a second column of containers 4 high, so the crane had to move all of them out of the way first. Since this is a very unionized place, everything moved excruciatingly slowly, and only after three supervisors came and approved that all was in order could the loading proceed. 2.30pm came and went, which meant that I missed my USDA inspection appointment.

Eventually (it seemed like years later), the crane got to my container, grabbed it, raised it, backed up, and then slowly lowered my container onto the waiting truck. Sounds straightforward, but it was pretty scary stuff, especially after the guy operating the crane told me that he had dropped a couple of boxes before. Luckily, it went fine this time around, and we sped off to the USDA inspection station.

I managed to track down the USDA agent and get the bloody inspection done, thank God! This was pretty thorough, due to Foot and Mouth Disease paranoia, but eventually everything was found to be satisfactory and the USDA agent assured us she would remove the “hold” on the container. We happily went off, only to be told at the gate that the “hold” had not been removed. Another half hour of dashing around to track her down, and we managed to get this “hold” removed. We could finally leave!

Then it was time to slowly follow the truck (we had another 1½ hour stop but that is far too complicated to explain here) to the shipping company's dock (which happened to be in my town) and unload the car from the container. Except as soon as I connected the battery, the car sealed everything up. The immobiliser was inside so I had to use the “secret” method of entry and open the car up. It was virtually impossible to get into the car with the tight clearances in the container, but eventually I managed to wriggle in, turn off the alarm, start it up, and back out!

I had a fire-snorting, snarling, crackling, banging and popping Cerbera again. And I didn’t waste any time showing the Cerbie around its new digs again!!!!