Half A Ton Of My Life On The Ocean Wave

As part of the move to the US, I had a load of stuff shipped to my new flat in San Diego. The shipping company have said it won’t arrive for another couple of weeks, which is fair enough I suppose. In the crazy modern world it’s funny to have to wait 5 weeks to receive something. It’s like the old mail-order caveat, “Please allow 28 days for delivery”. Can’t they just email me it or something?

I was curious as to the route the 3.5 cubic metres of my stuff would take. The guys who packed it all up and took it away didn’t know. According to the shipping company’s online tracking page, my stuff is on the container ship APL Egypt.

According to this unsecured Excel spreadsheet of ship information, the APL Egypt was built in 2000, and registered in Monrovia in Liberia. The ship is classified as ‘Panamax‘, which means it has the maximum dimensions that will fit through the Panama Canal. Therefore it’s reasonable to assume that after leaving Felixstowe, the ship heads through the Canal, and then travels up the coast to Los Angeles. And according to this ship tracking map page, it looks like that’s what will happen. I’ll be watching.