15 months after we went into the boatyard in Belgium to have our EU safety survey, now required for all barges over 20 meters, we finally received our Certificat Communautaire in the mail.
If you stop by for a drink on our back deck, we will tell you the story about how our barge passed its official inspection with flying colors only to have a missing number on our Belgian papers cause a catch 22 that "ping-ponged" our paperwork from civil servants' desks in Belgium to fonctionnaires' desks in France for more than a year.
Speaking of bureaucratic nightmares, click here for a link to the TRIWV regulations to see just what we had to do to earn our certificate.Be sure to scroll through the whole document. :-)
Our battle ended last week, so now you can picture us with big smiles on our faces as we stand in our kitchen and gaze down at our certificate in all of its stamped, bureaucratic beauty resting so comfortably on our kitchen counter.
