From Santos, Brazil to London, United Kingdom - March, 2010

Martina is effectively a broker. She set me up with Seafair UK Ltd, who use Overseas Brasil as a partner company in Brasil. Martina can probably find you shippers for any country in South America. You could of course contact Overseas Brasil or Searfair UK Ltd direct.

Martina set up the shipping companies quickly and provided a good service.

Overseas Brasil were very nice to me and I think they tried as hard as they could. However, I was their first motorbike being shipped out of Brasil and I think they made some mistakes, which resulted in me paying over the odds. Shipping goods out of Brasil is a nightmare anyway. I had to deliver the bike to the warehouse 4 weeks before it actually left port in a boat because they expected many delays because I was shipping personal items in the crate with the bike. Customs then requested additional copies of documents (after the original submission of paperwork). Then customs took ages to check the bike, which meant I missed the original boat it was booked to sail on.

When it finally arrived in Tilbury, Seafair informed me that the price was more then I had been quoted by Overseas Brasil. To be fair to Seafair, their price was the same as they originally quoted to Martina (4 months previous). It was Overseas Brasil that gave me what they believed to be the new price (once they had processed the bike) which I thought was what I would be paying in the UK. What they do is Overseas Brasil invoice Seafair for the Brasilian bit and then Searfair invoice me for both the Brasilian and UK bit. It always a bit annoying to find out you've got to pay more than you thought. Collecting the bike from the warehouse in the UK was straight forward.

All in all. A bit of a hassle and cost more than I wanted.

Think twice before shipping from Brasil and if you're in a rush go my air not sea.

Read more about it here:
http://www.carno.ltd.uk/greasysprocket/blog/brazil/delivering-my-motorbi...