The Panama Canal: a testament to human imagination and ingenuity. It is a system of locks and bureaucracy that transports hundreds of millions of tons of cargo each year and makes the maritime trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific much more feasible. The Canal’s main competition is the comparatively inefficient overland transport option (via rail or truck), and the dangerous and lengthy trip around Cape Horn at the tip of South America. Especially for cruising sailors, the Panama Canal stands tall as a shortcut, despite its price tag and potential for burdensome paperwork.
For the EYE team, it has provided an interesting exercise in organization, communication, and patience. From the molding grandeur of ancient government offices to the frosty air conditioned reception at the semi-independent Autoridad del Canal de Panama (ACP), we have seen inside the gearbox of the Western Hemisphere’s foremost transit hub. At one point, we were sitting on a pile of nautical rope in the locked lobby of a payday loans/pawn shop waiting for a guy named “Tito.” Here’s how it went:
After anchoring in the industrial flats of Colon (the city on the Caribbean side of the Canal), Adam rowed the dinghy to another anchored cruising sailboat to get the scoop and borrow a cell phone to call the famous “Tito.” Tito is a local who came highly recommended and runs an informal cash-based conglomeration of taxi drivers, motor boat operators, canal line handlers, and street ragamuffins who help sailing yachts navigate the paperwork of canal transit.
Tito’s motorboat picked us up later that day and brought us to the public dock, along with the captains and crew of other boats anchored in the flats. There, we piled into a taxi with our Panamanian driver and the famous and gregarious Brazilian captain Aleixo, a true character.
The first stop was the copy center, to make 7 (seven!) copies of the boat documentation, Zarpe, and each of our passports. Next was the spotless offices of the ACP which featured a cold water cooler and Laura, the immovable and stoic official who registered us for a visit from the Admeasurer to measure the length of our boat- they don’t take your word for it. Next was the public Maritime Authority office, to have our passports and domestic Zarpe checked from our previous stop in Porvenir in the San Blas Islands.
We had already cleared through immigration, so we could skip this step, but we waited patiently as Captian Aleixo had the eight passports of his crewmembers stamped, while entertaining the officials with a copy of the fifth edition of a book that he wrote about his 1978-79 singlehanded circumnavigation, complete with vintage photos of him in Indonesia wearing a stylish black Speedo.
Finally, it was a race back across town to another copy center and then a Migrations office to get a tourist visa for our passports. We arrived at 2:58 to find the office closed two minutes early, but some sweet talking got us in the door for the last visas issued that day. Whew!
Then it was time for a trip to Tito’s office at “Empeños Guillermo” – William’s Payday Loan/Pawn Shop, to do some waiting while mysterious logistics machinations were taking place with Tito’s taxi fleet all across the city. Next we went to the supermarket for some provisioning and then to a Dominican restaurant for a well-deserved dinner of something that looked and tasted good. On the way back to the public dock, Tito appeared in the middle of the street to hand our driver a wad of cash for his services.
We rode the motorboat launch back across the industrial flats of Colon as the sun set near the container ships and loading cranes. It had been a long day full of surprises, and we had accomplished much: our passports had visas, our backpacks had groceries, and our stomachs had food. Most importantly, we had a date on which to expect the ACP to send an Admeasurer to our boat to continue the canal transit paperwork process; he would be arriving the next day. Or so we thought…
Stay tuned for the next post on The Trials and Trámites of Canal Transit Logistics, featuring a follow-up adventure in Colon, a trip to the ACP offices for some Good Cop-Bad Cop, and a discussion on the meaning of the Spanish word “Trámites.”
SOG
