One step forward

One Step Forward—13^th December 2012

If I’d remembered earlier in the day that it was the thirteenth all the pieces would have fallen into place for me.  

After much thinking about it, I decided to tackle the propane tanks today.  Cotinga has three tanks that are strapped down in a propane locker at the stern.  Only two tanks are attached to the delivery system at any one time.  One of these tanks was empty and I thought that the “spare” was empty as well.  After shutting all tanks and emptying the locker of all the extra stuff, I was able to remove the spare tank.  This one turned out to be full.  I removed the empty tank and replaced it with the spare.  Then I carried the empty tank to the car and popped it in the trunk.  As I drove out of the parking lot I thought “what’s that noise?”  I returned to the parking lot to investigate.  Peering under the car I could tell that the muffler wasn’t dragging on the ground.  That left the possibility that the muffler system has a hole in it…. I called my brother Rod for advice.  Then I called Paul (en route to Florida) to find out what he wanted me to do.  For now the plan is to await Paul’s arrival on Sunday.

Well, there are plenty of other jobs on my list.  I started on the Custom’s Decal.  This is issued by Customs and Border protection. Any US boat (over 30 ft?) returning from abroad has to have one. I had managed to find the web site to apply for this on-line during my middle of the night web surfing.  First you have to establish an account.  It’s the usually forty questions sort of thing, password must contain one of these, no more than two repeats, blah, blah, blah. Once you’ve done all that you are issued an account number.  Logging in, you arrive at a screen where you seem to have to create another account—same forty questions all over again (how many times do they have to ask my name?).  Then you get a new account number—yes, I don’t understand it either—and a little message saying that you will receive an email.  Nowhere could I find a button saying ‘order decal’.  I resorted to reading the email.  “Congratulations. You have no created the account that will allow you to order a customs decal from any PC anywhere in the USA. Please note that the on-line system is not compatible with Mac.”  Fantastic, I just spent 45 confusing minutes creating accounts that are useless to me.  Why couldn’t they tell me this up front!