Packing was an interesting process.  It was more about reducing needs than accommodating needs.  In the end we had a couple of suitcases.  How much clothes do you really need in the summer, on the water or in the middle of an ocean with nobody around? (please do not answer that).

We also needed to ship boat equipment from our old boat to the new one.  We used a shipping company which crated the goods and ship them to the boat yard in La Grande Motte, France where the boat was built.

For a guy that is used to travel with carry on only, this trip made up for it.  The above picture are the lugages we are going to carry with us in the plane (no carry-on here) with a connection in Paris.

As usual, my point of view is whatever goes under in a plane has a 50/50 chance of showing up at the destination. Luckily they all followed us to the destination without a hitch.  We just undersized the car and had to move up to a minivan. By the way, a mini van in Europe is significantly smaller than a minivan here.  The really mean mini.

I was ready for a full custom inspection given the various tools, medicine and other items we were bringing but no issues.  We just walked out of the airport as if we were on a local flight.

The Box however was a completely other story.  As planned it took 2 weeks to go from Toronto to Anvers in Europe and 4 weeks from Anvers (Belgium) to La Grande Motte including several hundreds euro of unexpected cost for reasons that defies comprehension.  This, after all, was Canadian used goods belonging to me and going to a Canadian boat.  We finally out papered the European shipper.  We send him proof of residence, copy of visas, copy of phone bill proving residence …  Insanity à la Georges Orwell.  We however prevailed. Resulting in the picture below.

Passage through French administration was more difficult than crossing the Atlantic

It was a joyous day.  We finally had our cutlery, pillows, tools, dinghy engine, small generator …

I hate administrivia but persistence did pay off.