Melissa’s Soapbox

Originally posted in my email update from April 9, 2006 …

When arriving and preparing for check in almost anywhere in the world, foreign boats are required to fly the arriving country´s flag as well as a yellow flag indicating quarantine status until full customs approval.  We followed this procedure and even had to look up Panama´s flag in an atlas to make sure that we were flying the flag right side up (that would be blue star on top) to avoid a major nationalistic insult (making friends fast in Panama!).

We contacted the marina who contacted the customs officials to make the necessary arrangements.  Unfortunately for our very tired, dirty, and starving selves, the customs officials didn´t come into work until 9:00 a.m. and if you´ve been to Central America, you know this means 9:20 or so.  So we dropped anchor and started cleaning up the boat and the time passed quickly.  A small whaler arrived and 4 individuals boarded our boat: the customs guy named Moses, the shore master (a woman who spoke no English but was wearing a very official uniform and completely impractical panty hose), some guy with no real purpose in the overall process, and the agriculture guy (short conversation: any plants, fruits, or vegetables? nope. adios.).  As they sat in the cockpit of the boat looking very bureaucratic, the heavens absolutely opened up and the driving rain began.  They looked up nervously at the canvas cover as it very tenuously held against the rain, but as it began to give way, everyone scattered below deck, and we felt confident that the whole process would speed up exponentially.  All of the purely administrative requests were easily fulfilled through one resolution or another (create a quicky crew list, write down the remaining provisions, report any perishables, etc.). 

Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to us, Moses the customs manager was in his first week in the job, and had no idea what he was doing.  He was absolutely flummoxed by the fact that we had no exit stamps from the US and confiscated our passports for “further investigation”.  Clearly, the US doesn´t do exit stamps which we sought to prove with our actual passports and previous travel.  And then we tried an unsolicited “gratuity” but nothing worked.

The captain of our boat (John) followed Moses, the boisterous bureaucrat´s instructions, and set off to his office at the airport.  There, Moses´ boss stood by the rookie´s decision, and indicated that our only option was to charter a private plane to speak to the next person in the hierarchy at, what amounts to, the county seat.  And so we did!  We sent John on a $40 piloted Cessna in the driving rain with the very nervous and white knuckled Moses who crossed himself several times and definitely made promises to the Almighty that he probably won´t be able to keep.  At the destination, the big boss said of course, everybody knows the US doesn´t exit stamp, but Moses was new and not many people sail direct from the US.  Finally, we were all set.

As we were leaving Panama to fly to Costa Rica from the ramshackle Bocas del Toro airport, we were shuffled towards the immigrations office, and there was Moses!  Less than excited to see us having lost face in the previous exchange, but we passed through without incident!

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