Checking inPanama
Karinya
Tim And Vicki Schofield, Captain Cal 7 and Jess 4
Wed 13 Apr 2011 12:01
We are now checked in and have our transit date. Checking in was a little
surreal, you would swear the immigration office had never seen a boat before
and this check in was the first ever conducted. Considering the boat traffic
going through Panama it was really weird. We had the Admeasure yesterday,
since the USA gave the canal back to Panama things have tripled in price and
the service has all but disappeared. We are scheduled for the 27th of April!
They only have 3 small boat advisors so only 3 boats per day can go through!
We hoping by bugging the scheduler every day, he will relent and push us up
the queue.
Colon, a city name or a body part that sees lots of manure? Very hard to
decide, but an apt name for this city. Everything is falling down,
buildings, people, service, but at least the bureaucracy is standing tall
and strong. They knocked down the marina that was close to all facilities,
and decided to build one on the other side of the lake/canal. It is miles
away from anything and now being the only game in town runs at $90 per
night. We currently anchored in the harbor close to the amenities, but get
tug boat wash all day. We will go into the marina for a few nights, but not
until we have provisioned for the Pacific, fixed a few boat parts and then
will try find a decent place to anchor and wait for our transit.
Wifi is not easy here so its all on sat phone for the moment