Delivery Trip: Arrived in Darwin

Pikorua arrived in Darwin last night after her 9 day trip from her last stop in Malaysia. Overall the trip went well with good weather and no mechanical issues.

We are very relieved to have the boat safely in Darwin. Next step is to clear customs and refuel before beginning the final leg to Sydney which should take around 11 days, depending on weather of course. Gary (our delivery skipper) has been updating his blog regularly. It's been great getting these updates, and we are glad to hear the AC is being appreciated.

We've had some last minute drama getting customs sorted out. According to the the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement we do not need to pay a 5% stamp duty to import the boat into Australia. We had hired a customs broker a few weeks ago thinking we had plenty of time but we did not factor in time for tardy email responses or difficulty getting documentation completed by Granocean. The issue was around getting a Certificate of Origin (CoO) with names matching who were paid our bills to. The customs broker was not happy with the CoO, and that the boat had spent 3 weeks in Hong Kong getting last minute technical issues sorted out, and as such asserted that we were not exempt from the 5% import duty fee - a not insignificant amount of money.

By this stage there were only 2 business days before the boat was due to arrive so we transferred the money (GST plus import duty) to the broker thinking we would try to get the 5% back later. Subsequently our boat broker spoke to the customs broker but that didn't go well and ended with him having a hissy fit about someone having the audacity to question his professional integrity. He then proceeded to fire us as clients (and sent us a spray of emails berating our boat broker).

So now we were 1.5 business days (at Christmas time) before the boat was due to arrive in Australia, not sure what had been lodged with Border Force (an impenetrable government authority that do not want you contacting them no matter how hard you try), and our money was with a pissed off unprofessional customs broker. All this was happening as we were on a 3.5 hour car ride down to Canberra. Thank goodness for modern technology and having internet access everywhere.

It is now Monday and the boat has arrived in Australian waters. We have a new broker who thinks our documentation is Ok and has agreed to take us on at the last minute, plus our money is back in our account. We are scheduled to fly to Canada this afternoon so hopefully we can make the GST payment today and no further hiccups occur while we are jetting across the Pacific at 34,000 feet. It has been a very stressful last few days to say the least so we are definitely looking forward to some festive season down time.