[WHOOSH]

Lee, glad the info is proving helpful.

Re: moving a boat you buy in The Netherlands to the Med, you have multiple options. Don''t forget to "dredge up" all the facts you can about controlling depths and govt. holidays (sorry for the pun) if you are thinking of the canals. As more and more commerce moves by truck, the canals are serviced less often but the workers and their unions insure the same level of holiday (and work stoppage) as ever!

"We''ve been living here for 4 years, so I''m used to EU bureaucracy."
I''m amazed that''s possible, but of course it is. Typical is the story our guests told us when we visited them this weekend in the English Midlands. He was flying ''guest flags'' for his house guests (Sweden and U.S.) and admitted his flag pole was not ''licensed'' or ''authorized''. When I probed, he explained that one must submit an application at the local town council office to receive permission to have and use a flag pole. To we North Americans, this is unfathomable but, over here, flags are a big deal and so the local authorities want to insure that flags are flown correctly and also so as not to offend others. But the part I found most amazing was the unconscious leap that is made - by my host and also the council - that being granted approval obligated my host to also pay a fee. It''s that ''permission'' to do what hardly creates an expense to the community justifying a fee that is the part I find hard to grasp. OTOH it''s what makes so many Europeans work relentlessly, trying to identify loopholes and clever ''fiddles'' - like my host, who''s flag pole is hidden from the road by an outbuilding - to avoid all this nonsense in the first place.

Jack