The Best Laid Plans...

Location: Shelter Bay Marina, Panama

Date: 19th October 2022

Well, we've made it back to Panama but not without a few hiccups.

Our time in Europe alternated between mother caring duties and friend and family reunions. We saw all Gill's sisters, plenty of friends as well as daughters Jenny (in Zaragoza, Spain) and Emma (from London), Jack and Fizzy in their beautiful French farmhouse and Marcus' parents. We emptied our storage unit, attended a friend's memorial service and spent social time with the canal restoration team. It was great to revisit our other life.

We also made the big decision to transit the Panama Canal early next year and to head across the massive Pacific Ocean, destination New Zealand sometime in the future probably via the Galapagos islands. That prompted the purchase of a Rainman watermaker which magically converts seawater to fresh water, as well as numerous other spare parts. After all you really don't want to be sourcing parts from distant Bora Bora or Tahiti do you?

Eight thousand miles of white chart!

We ended up with four hold bags, one of which was oversize and one over weight. Hopefully we could reclaim the VAT tax on the watermaker.

The baggage accumulates.

All ready to fly on 23rd September with our care commitments almost finished when my brother and his wife inconveniently contract COVID. So my mum's support team is decimated unless we can help out. We decide to stay an extra three weeks, and in that time move her into a permanent care home. We of course have no other prior commitments as our diary simply says "Panama". There follows a very hard three weeks when we do indeed get her established in Scarlet House care home and we even manage to clear her flat for sale. More social arrangements also magically appear.

Mum.

So it's a tired couple who set off for Gatwick Airport in a one way hire car. All goes swimmingly to begin with. The car hire price is dropped and the British Airways check in lady doesn't charge us extra for the big bag and lets us take the heavy one for free! This though after we find out that VAT reclaims are now only possible if shipped direct by the supplier. Thank you Brexit! We decide to spend a short night in a Gatwick hotel and the lady there upgrades us just because we had a nice chat at check-in.

Off we go to Gatwick at 2.45am and a big breakfast in the Royal Bank of Scotland lounge breaking all my no bacon, no honeycomb, no sugary baked beans rules (prostate cancer still held at bay with PSA at 1.4, down from an initial 643).

That's when things began to go downhill. Before we even took off I collapsed. Paramedics were called, Gill wondered whether I would come round and nurses appeared from nowhere. Eventually I did come round and amazingly was deemed fit to fly (mainly I think because they didn't want the hassle of finding and unloading all our bags). At one stage we considered breaking our journey and going to see Jenny in Spain but I was feeling a bit better by the time we reached Madrid so with ringing ears we transferred for the ten hour flight to Panama.

PTY, Panama International. We whizzed through immigration and into baggage reclaim. They are calling for Douch John to go to Customs. But first we need our bags. We wait. We wait some more. The carousel empties. Finally we spot the oversize bag on the next belt. But that's it. No sign of the other three bags. We go to Lost Luggage and fill in a form. Maybe they will come on Monday on the next Iberia flight. Maybe Customs have them. Is that why they called Douch John? Nope, the don't have them and can't remember why they called me either.

Ah well, let's at least take our one bag through customs and out to Olmedo (you will know him by his girth) the taxi driver. What's this? We need to pay duty? WTF, this is for a Yacht in Transit and duty free. Oh no it's not, we need to calculate the tax. We give them the, slightly undervalued, invoice and off they go. $200US dollars plus which is a bummer but at least we have the cash. Oh no, you can't do that, we need to keep hold of it, you need to employ an agent and it's Friday night so come back on Monday. All this of course carried out in Spanish with plenty of opportunity for confusion. Thank goodness for Gilly's Duolingo course.

It's a two hour drive from Panama City airport to Shelter Bay where the boat is and we don't know an agent and I bet Olmedo the taxi driver has given up and gone home. But no, he's still there and we sit quietly after a 37 hour journey finally arriving at 2am UK time on Day2.

But it's warm and Mehelah has been moved out of the quarantine yard into the workyard and they've even left a ladder for us to get on board.

Sleep.

Two days on and things look a bit less bleak. We've found an agent. We've learned that Iberia luggage usually arrives eventually and the boat is getting a bit more organised. This evening we've been to a very American Pot Luck (bring your own food to share) and we've filled our water tank. The electricity still doesn't work and there are a few dead cockroaches aboard though maybe our friendly gecko will eat any live ones. We're gradually modifying our expectations and things are looking up as we prepare to address the rudder problem. But that's for another day.

Graham our gecko.

2 Days later....

After another morning when I didn't feel too good things start to look up. Gill gets Juanjo  and his office lady Katarin involved. They of course know people who know people both at Iberia and Customs. Juanco saves us $700US by convincing them we don't need to pay duty and hence have no need of an agent. I talk in "Spanish" to the delivery man. We both say "Shelter Bay Marina" a lot and then up rolls a van with the three missing bags. One of them we were told had been vibrating. The new hair clippers must have switched themselves on when the bag was tossed around. Big bags require a trolley to transport them. Unfortunately the trolley is covered in thick grease that gets all over two of the bags. Still, that's a good start. Just the Customs bag now.

Off we set back to PTY airport in Olmedo's taxi. He's been primed by Juanjo so he knows the task. It's a bit like the Panama check in in the blue shack......

Drive to PTY. Eventually determine which terminal we need to go to. Go to Terminal 2. Go to Customs door. Need to go upstairs to get a badge to go airside where the bag is. Gill surrenders passport in exchange for badge. Back downstairs. Gill disappears through the Customs door.

Olmedo begins the long wait outside Customs door.

Inside she is starting the fight against the system. Show driving licence, fill in forms, wait, wait. Wait for customs lady who needs to come with us back to the northern end of the Panama Canal to Cristobal. After 90 minutes she arrives from Cargo and off we set. A further 90 minutes and we wend our way through a dodgy part of Colon to the northern customs team office. Here there is a complex handover to the tough looking Colon customs lady before we take the pretty petite Panama City one to the bus station so she can scamper back, relieved, to Panama City. Meanwhile Gill is left in the hands of Colon Customs where a violent shouting match takes place around her about who knows what and eventually we can drive back to Shelter Bay. Result. Reunited with all bags thanks to Juanjo, Katerina and Olmedo. Without them we are lost.

Oh. Did I tell you it rains here? A lot. Two inches the other night and more than that tonight with spectacular thunder and lightning. The boat leaks in a least three places.

Now we can start putting things away and looking at the rudder issue. Today I've exposed the bolts holding the skeg onto the hull and it's all gone quite well. An impact driver is need to extract them to allow the rudder to drop. Off to Novi in Colon for that on Friday.

Exposing the skeg bolts.

Wildlife?

Large cat.

Toucan.

Coati.