Customs...

No, not the way your family spends the holidays.  We signed up with Customs and Border Protection for the Small Vessel Reporting System.  Since we are close to Canada, we are thinking it will be interesting to go over to Victoria, Sidney, and other nearby ports on our time off.  With an SVRS, you can file a float plan and be able to pass right through when coming back to the US.  We filed on-line, received confirmed reservations with the local Customs office.  When we showed up today for those appointments, the Customs officer didn't know anything about it.  He looked on his computer and said, "Nope, you aren't there."

"Well, we are here.  Is there anything we can do?  We do have a confirmation number from the reservations that were made."

He clicked the computer a lot... then went to another computer... "Oh, here you are.  You already have reservations."

It didn't get any better.  He couldn't make this computer work, either; couldn't get it to take our fingerprints; didn't take any ID photo; didn't take any boat registration information.  After 45 minutes of watching him click on the computer, he declared, "This isn't working.  You're in the system, so you're good to go."

I said, "Well, if you need us to come back to do fingerprints or get any info from us, just give us a call."

About 45 minutes later, we got a call: "OK, I have this computer working.  Please come back as soon as you can and we'll get this going."

Yeah, we went right back.  Yeah, he couldn't make the computer work, again.  More waiting, more clicking.

Pretty sure we aren't "in the system," but I'm really hoping he didn't wind up putting us on some "no entry into the US" list.  ;-)