Key Largo……pirates

23 October 2010

                        

We have found doing business with Americans, in Florida, generally an
unsatisfactory experience. Unlike in New Zealand and Switzerland integrity
escapes these Americans.

We also experienced this in the process of purchasing the boat last year.
This year in January we had prepaid Sam Stoia of AAAA boats and Tires
US$5000.00 to store and care for the boat after had it had been delivered for
us by a boat captain we had employed to do this.

We have been criticized for not being on hand to deliver and oversee the
“storing” of the boat but we had waited too long – 4 weeks -for the US
Coastguard to delete it from the registry. It had already cost us two Delta
flights from Orlando to Los Angeles – no you can’t just change your booking
dates, you have to buy new tickets. We do not refund but you can use your old
one another time.

“Good” I said, thinking I would be returning to the boat the following year,
“Can I use it from Los Angeles to Orlando rather than Orlando to Los Angeles”.
”No” she said “Only Orlando to Los Angeles”

That’s why we do not fly Delta any more.

So with huge costs in having to already once change flights for a later
return to New Zealand and then the ongoing costs of the rental car and living
aboard on the marina in Ft Lauderdale

And with no glint of when the US Coast Guard was finally going to process
the deletion, we reluctantly left the boat to the captain to sail down to Rock
Harbor as soon as the “paper work ” was completed. In New Zealand or
Switzerland this is something that you could comfortably leave to others to
competently do but not in Florida!

Even when specifically instructed to do so as soon as the boat came in in
mid January (we wanted to limit sun damage) Sam Stoia did not have the sails
down and stored until May. The mystery is; did the person who placed the sails
in the saloon not smell the diesel in the bilge? Why did he not investigate and
deal to the problem.

Whoever took the sails down must have been over powered with diesel fumes
when the saloon doors were opened.

All the boatyard owner, Sam Stoia can think of at the moment is “insurance”.
I asked him if this is what americans are living on these days, other people’s
insurance, and then gave him the “good news” about all the damage on
our boat as a result of his negligence.

But I am not looking forward to the morning….

They will try and make a mountain out of a molehill and all the while they are
polluting the environment with uncontrolled removal of anti fouling paintwork
off boats less than 100 metres from us!

God, how I hate the American way of things down here. It is not a nice place… they are
like sharks circling

So not good news … we hope it will be one day though

PS:  We are insured and Neil Bailey and his team in New Zealand have been good to work with.