Hi all,
Thanks for stopping in to have a quick read of my rant and rave. As this is my first post I'll probably be letting off a fair bit of steam, and hopefully by next time I'll have been paddling and won't feel so tense.
"Why so tense?" I hear you ask. Well, here goes.
I moved to China over a year and a half ago, packing only those necessities that could fit into a 25kg weight allowance. Unfortunately that didn't quite allow for my nomad, disco and my girlfriend's rpm, plus all the kit accumulated from more than ten years of paddling.
We decided to pack all of our kit and boats, in the hope that we would be able to get them shipped out at some point in the future, when we had sussed out storage and shipping, things like that.
Well that day finally arrived. We moved to a new flat which provided us with ample space to store 3 boats plus the trimmings. We set about getting everything to Hamburg, ready to be loaded onto a cargo ship to be sent half way around the world. That part came off with almost no hitches, taking just a couple of weeks from when we started.
Yippee, the boats are on their way. Great, the ship has sailed. 3 1/2 - 4 weeks, says the shipping agent. Unfortunately that didn't take into account the amazing party that China undertook throughout August - The Olympics. All shipping to olympic cities was stopped for the duration and our boats languished in some malaysian harbour until they cleared the backlog of shipments necessary for business.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those China-Olympic bashers. I had an amazing time, getting to see three days of flatwater racing, plus two days of football. We were a little bit disappointed to find out that the slalom course, one of the most amazing man-made whitewater courses I've seen, is due to be ripped out and converted to a waterpark now that the Olympics are over. But oh well, we got to see Tim Brabants qualify for the finals (had to head back to start work, so missed the gold medal race).
With the Olympics officially done and dusted, we started to get our hopes up that our boats might be arriving soon, and so they did. In the middle of September we were told that the boats had arrived in Qingdao, and now it was just a question of customs.
That was just the start of it, suddenly we had to provide detailed itemised lists of everything that was in the bags we'd packed almost two years beforehand. We were intially told that if there is any difference between our lists and what is actually there we may not get the differences. Then we were told that little things wouldn't matter. Then we had to provide a letter from employers. Then a letter stating what the products were and what we intended to do with them. They wanted to know what our secret ulterior commercial motive was for importing these items. Employers had to stamp and sign our itemised lists. plus lots more paperwork. Finally we were told that everything was sorted and we just had to wait for the signature of an official. Great. Except he might have gone on holiday, nobody's actually sure, and they haven't seen him for a while.
Today they got back to me telling me everything has been processed, but there's a slight irregularity. They looked on the internet and decided that my 4 year old second hand nomad was actually a brand new one worth close to $1000. Ouch. We've given up on getting our hopes up now, now we just hope that they'll arrive sometime this decade.
My advice to you, dear readers, is, if you're planning on importing your boat to China, bring it on the plane, or don't bother.
This Saturday Dianne and I returned to Broken Bow, Oklahoma for some 
This summer will be the last year that the Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission will charge floaters a user fee! Since 1984, floaters have been required to pay user fees to float the river and its tributaries. 