Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom
Monday, December 27, 2010
To finish the story we should say that we had a reasonable flight back to UK and then had to wait for the vehicle. This was routing from Esmereldas throught to the USA where it was transhipped before heading on to Amsterdam. Once again we has a couple of problems since the vessel was slightly delayed and we ended up with it arriving on Christmas eve. We were able to get Kirsty out of the dock but could then get no further. When we went to get Kirsty we were telling the agent about our outbound shipping to the USA and how it had been damaged at the back. What did we find again, someone had reversed the vehicle over a metal bar and peeled off about 6 inches of metal at the base. We then went inside and found that the US customs had taken a sabre saw to the internal wall we had built and cut it down. Part of this wall had fallen inside and ripped one of the internal blinds. To make matters worse when they had finished they just left it open which meant anybody then had access to all our goods inside. This was done to the vehicle which had numerous security stickers on it put there and stating they had been placed by the Ecudorean Drugs Unit. In addition the vehicle was only in transit in the US port and so was placed in a transit area. We did ask but it appears that the US customs unit is allowed to break into the vehicle and are not held accountable for the damage they caused. Other travellers be WARNED!
We managed to get an overnight ferry from Amsterdam back to Newcastle on the 26 December and passed through customs with no problems. That said they could not deal with the import of the vehicle, it appears that only the Dover station can deal with the re-import payments. In the end the Border people gave us a letter explaining that they could not deal with us there and allowed us to drive to
Aberdeen to finish the paperwork from home.
Now we are back home with the vehicle to sell and lots of wonderful memories.
