Current Date: 20th April 2022
Current Location: Linton Bay Marina, Panama
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| Kevin's Little Blue Shack. |
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| Blue Customs Container. |
When you arrive in a new country by boat you normally have to check in with Port Police, Customs, Immigration and potentially the marina. Sometimes this is very straightforward as in Bonaire. Sometimes it is not as when arriving in Panama at Linton Bay Marina. And remember this is our first arrival in a Spanish speaking country too.
Here's how it went.
Tie up.
Met on dock by Kevin, dock master? Come and see me when you are sorted.
Ask for Kevin in small blue shack.
Not there. Another guy says go to customs (or is it Port Police?) in the blue container on the other side of the hard standing.
Go there.
Guard on marina entry duty says he's just gone to lunch. Come back at 1pm. It's already 1.05.pm.
Return to boat for an hour.
Go to blue container. Custom guy says have you done you Covid form?
No. Where do we do that? You need to see Kevin in the little blue shack.
Return to Kevin. Very helpful. Photocopies our NHS vaccination forms. Then sends them to Panama City by email for certification. Should take an hour.
Next day!
Kevin brings authorisation email. We can progress to the next step.
Return to customs guys in blue container.
Custom guy says do we have all our photocopies? We don't.
You can get photocopies from Kevin in small blue shack.
Return to Kevin. "Do you want photocopies?"
Yes. He makes photocopies, no charge. 3 x boat registration, 3 x crew list, 2 x passports.
Return to customs guy. He fills in big form with us.
But we don't have our engine number which he needs for his form and our registration document has printing on both sides and he needs copies of them both. Also we decide (for simplicities sake!!) to apply for our cruising permit, which is actually only required on exit from the country. That's 250US dollars if you do it from here as they have to take the completed form to Panama City by hand.
Gill returns to the boat for money and engine number. I go to Kevin in the little blue shack who happily makes some photocopies for me.
Back to the blue container and ..... we're finished with customs.
Just immigration left to do now.
However immigration is in Portabelo 6km away.
We walk to the road and wait for a bus whilst watching a line of leaf cutter ants marching across the bus stop. It arrives after an hour. It is raining.
The bus is like out of a film. Garish, Spanish music playing. It's now pissing down. We pay 3US each and sit near the back. The bus is almost empty. We travel through the jungliest jungle.
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| Typical Panamanian Bus. |
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| Inside our bus (before it filled up)! |
The bus stops. It fills up with maybe 40 schoolchildren. Every seat including ours now has three people on it and the central aisle is crammed full.
Did I say it was pissing down?
We came to s small village. Two kilometres out the other side we think "Shit, was that Portabelo?"
Try Gill's Spanish in loud bus. Where is Portabelo? Girl points back to where we've come from. Bugger.
Large woman in front of us gets up to force her way to front of bus. We tuck in behind and emerge in middle of nowhere in the pouring rain.
Cross road to bus stop going back into Portabelo. Ask schoolchildren when next bus is.1.5 hours. We're soaked by now.
Taxi comes along and a guy flags it down. We jump in the back. 2US back to Portabelo.
Find immigration office.
Very helpful until they realise our Aruba departure document which is actually the Aruba arrival document with an extra stamp on it says Santa Marta, Colombia as our next port of call [that's where we thought we would go next when we checked into Aruba 2 months ago]. Ah, problem!!
No problem. You need to write a letter to Panama City explaining it was too windy to go to Santa Marta so you came here for the safety of yourselves and the boat. You can do it now. Here is a pen and some paper.
We write the letter.
But...we need more photocopies to accompany the letter.
Where can we do that?
In the pharmacy down the road. [You might think that an immigration office might have a photocopier. You would be wrong].
Walk to pharmacy.
Get photocopies.
Return to immigration office.
Complete formalities. Put "Galapagos" as next country! Who knows if this will be the case though.
Get very feint Panama entry stamp in passports as ink running out in stamp.
Thank immigration staff and leave office.
Decide to get taxi back to Linton Bay. An 'interesting' journey as it is still pissing with rain (the rainy season has just begun), the road is potholed and the driver is watching Liverpool playing a Euro match live on his mobile phone attached to a bracket on his dashboard.
Nevertheless we survive the ordeal and finally arrive back at the boat six hours after leaving the marina.
WE ARE NOW IN PANAMA!
Click here to see previous Mehalah and Petronella posts.
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