Barry had thought of several possible ways to get our boxes from the warehouse here on the island to our door, but that part of the journey ended up being one of the easiest. Turns out that Grand Caribe has a cart they can hitch to a Polaris for just this sort of delivery, so we gratefully accepted the help of "Mr. Raymond" to transport our goods safely to Chico Caribe today. We picked up the boxes at the Caribbean Depot warehouse south of San Pedro, and upon entering the warehouse, Barry was horrified to see that our two bike boxes that were marked in multiple places "This End Up", and "Do Not Lay Flat" were indeed lying flat on the bottom of the stack of boxes. Eeeek!
Today was finally the day -- we got our shipment from the US that we packed and mailed in July! What a load off both our minds, but especially Barry's, as he was "prime" for this piece of the moving puzzle; much as I was prime for getting Paisley down here. He was so sure something would go wrong with this complex shipment, as it had to go through so many different hands, from Chapel Hill to Houston, then driven through Mexico to Belize City, through customs, then put on a barge to San Pedro, and finally transported to our condo here north of town. Fortunately, although the Mexico leg was delayed, there were no major snafus, nothing got lost, stolen, or confiscated, and the total cost came in $250 under his estimate. Great! Barry had thought of several possible ways to get our boxes from the warehouse here on the island to our door, but that part of the journey ended up being one of the easiest. Turns out that Grand Caribe has a cart they can hitch to a Polaris for just this sort of delivery, so we gratefully accepted the help of "Mr. Raymond" to transport our goods safely to Chico Caribe today. We picked up the boxes at the Caribbean Depot warehouse south of San Pedro, and upon entering the warehouse, Barry was horrified to see that our two bike boxes that were marked in multiple places "This End Up", and "Do Not Lay Flat" were indeed lying flat on the bottom of the stack of boxes. Eeeek! Even though many of our boxes looked quite a bit worse for their long journey (one was completely open on one side!), so far only one small glass bowl of little value ended up broken, and that was my fault for packing two bowls together rather than wrapping each one individually. Despite the questionable storage of the bike boxes, the bikes were just fine, thanks to Barry's thorough packing technique. While I was unpacking kitchen and household boxes, Barry feverishly began assembling our beach bikes, as he was determined to get out on a ride today. We had missed getting our vegetable fix at Healthy Belize this morning, so he wanted to ride to town to Zac's to get our tomatoes, peppers, and whatever else caught our eye. I was sure Barry would never make his self-imposed deadline, but surprisingly, he did, and we got on the road around 4:40pm, visited with Zac and got our veggies, then made it back here in time to play ball with Paisley for awhile before dinner. Barry was thrilled to have his bike, and so was I; it's a much easier, quicker way to get to town, and since the breezes have been down the past couple days and mosquitoes up as a result, moving more quickly is a great way to elude the little devils. Tomorrow we'll get some biking photos to add to the blog. Until then, it's time to continue getting organized around here!
8 Comments
Sabrina
9/8/2011 02:56:10 pm
Yay! Amazing that only one small vase broke.
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Chip Gentry
9/8/2011 09:56:03 pm
Whew!
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Chip Gentry
9/8/2011 10:03:30 pm
And THAT is downsizing in a BIG way.
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BeBelize Emily
9/9/2011 04:41:40 am
Sabrina, We did have one more small broken item when we unpacked all our compact fluorescent lightbulbs last night. One broke. We still have a few extra, so that was no biggie at all. Not so sure what to do with a big bag of incandescents we replaced, though!
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Lynda
3/29/2012 09:16:18 am
Your blog is a godsend! We are moving to sanpedro the end of next year. Can you tell me what shipping company you used and did you use a customs broker? Thanks!
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BeBelize Emily
3/30/2012 09:52:48 am
Hi Linda, we used Dennis Bellini, who has been shipping to San Pedro for many years. He drives the stuff through Mexico. His email is: [email protected]. He serves as your custom's broker as part of his service, so we never had to go to Belize City or anything. It worked out very well, and his fees were reasonable. Just drop him an email if you want to get a quote. Good luck!
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Lynda
3/31/2012 01:21:20 am
Tha is so much!!! The shipping part is confusing for us. I will drop him an email and see what he says. Thanks!
BeBelize Emily
3/31/2012 06:00:13 am
Lynda -- one more suggestion. If you are on Facebook, come join the group "Belize Expats". There are lots of discussions there that you would probably find interesting, and shipping gets discussed frequently. Other members can provide other recommendations for you to consider as well, as the choice of shipper can be influenced by how much you plan to ship, where you live currently, and so forth. Good luck!
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