FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

For anyone planning on doing something like this, I would say to you, the first thing you will need to do is talk to enough people who have had good shipping experiences (and bad ones too) and do your homework as to which shipping agencies are competent to do what you ask of them, and which are not. The next step is to NOT simply believe what you are told, but to get all the information you are given checked out by contacting the agent's people at the destination end, to see whether what you have been told is realistic and reliable. The third thing is to ask, at both ends - departure AND destination - what the worst case scenario is with time frames (assuming there's no reason why your goods won't get cleared through customs), for sailing itself, docking, quarantining, inspection of random containers, customs procedures, warehouse storage, and WHERE you can clear your goods through customs, and plan around it. Don't let anyone tell you its possible to clear customs in a port other than where your goods are sitting. It simply isn't true. Ask every conceivable question you can think of at both ends, however stupid and irrelevant you may privately wonder it to be, and LISTEN!!!!!! to other people's experiences before you undertake to ship anything anywhere if you have a time-limited reason for doing so. Telling shippers you have a time limited intention is NOT enough to ensure everyone who is a party to the process does what they should. And don't just assume that whatever you have been told that makes you believe that ANY of the process is straightforward, is the truth. Yes, some people have no problem with shipping stuff, millions, in fact. But its a mistake to rely on what so-called experts and so-called experienced people tell you and just accept it with blind faith. Don't think of yourself as paranoid for trying to tie up as many loose ends as you humanly can before you sign on the dotted line. I made a series of mistakes here, and it all came down to trusting people. I didn't expect to be given a deadline to have my bike at the wharf to then find out it had sat on the dock for two full weeks before even being shipped. I didn't expect to be embroiled in paperwork processes which are apparently quite normal, in the good old US of A, for which I should have been prepared. It simply never occurred to me that I couldn't trust what I was told, that there actually WAS a worst case scenario and that the person telling me was unaware of it to the point where all I got was the blue sky scenario, and then, when I protested at how badly I felt they had treated me AND my bike, what did I get? An apology? NO!!! I got a three page fax detailing the obligations and limitations of the agency, and that was it.
I'm not saying don't do this, to anyone who wants to. I'm planning on doing it again myself, and on a much bigger scale, as some of you already know, but never to America again, and not with that agent. Just make sure, before you do anything like this, that you really have been given all the facts, and get them verified by all parties to the process before you spend any money.

Rest assured girls, for those of us who are going to Aussie for the Breast Cancer Research ride next summer, I will be that paranoid person, on the phone till I'm blue in the face and until I've made everyone crazy, making sure nothing like this can EVER!!!!!!!!! happen again.

My smile is wobbly, but it IS still here, just about. Hugs to all.
Keep watching.