Colon Free Zone

Sunday Feb 14 2010 4:15 AM Colon Panama
Shelter Bay Marina is the only marina on this side of the canal....the other was "taken over" by the government for a container ship terminal....a preview of the US under Obama...more money from the terminal for the government than a marina. So private business be damned. Here at Shelter Bay Marina there is the most diverse bunch of cruisers, from all over the world...getting their boats ready for the transit of the canal.We decided to do our own check-in with customs rather than spend the 60 bucks and let the marina do the check-in for us.I really wanted to go to the "Free Zone" the 2nd largest in the world. This is a walled city within the sewer called Colon where there are no duty or taxes...but first we had to do the check-in from hell. Joyce met another cruiser on the bus and we shared a cab to another sewer which housed the central customs office ..after 20 minuets we were informed that we had to go to the port captain first...another cab to another sewer ... up 3 floors and wait for 20 mi...now we need copies of our documents...Joyce goes across the street to the bank to get the copies...from the port captain we go next door for our cruising permit...oh yes...need 2 copies of something for the permit...back to the bank for Joyce....from there we have to walk to the Immigration office about 200 yds away within the port area...and yes you need some more copies of your crew list for them....another cruiser made the run to the drug store for our and their copies....we had started at 8:30....it was now almost noon.....interesting thing there was a copy machine in the damn office... what a bureaucratic FU. So we hopped another cab to the Free Zone....saw a McDonalds and had lunch...back to the free Zone...no Panamanians allowed and you need a passport to get in....well all I saw on the inside was Panamanians.....walked a few blocks...like a city within a city....well like a city within a sewer...1 store after another....where is the cheap booze???? Joyce finally went into a store for info.....our shopping list had some boat stuff...provisions and of course cheap booze. You would think there would be a map of the damn place...our info gal had no idea where the "Boat" store was...finally I asked where the booze was...we got our directions and walked to the "store".....like a high end department store. You had to sign in and a few min later a chippie escorts us into the store....We explain our "Watertimes.org" business and start looking at various stuff...cameras....computers...just about anything...nothing was a buy....stuff cost 25-40% more than the states or off the internet...finally we ask...what is a bargain for a US citizen???? only the booze....ok....so we check some prices...about the same as St Thomas ...duty free...great if you want to drink top shelf stuff....but what ever you buy has to be taken back to the boat by some customs guy to make sure you are a "yacht in transit"...cost ..$140 bucks...so unless you are buying a pallet of Bombay gin...no real savings....bummer...my dreams of a full boat of booze and cheap marine supplies was crushed.....seems most of the customers are buyers from South American countries....wholesale....with Cruise ship and airline passengers taking buses into get duty free prices...I could do better on Ebay.....I was bummed....so we caught a cab back to the mall to wait for the bus back to the marina...ran into a couple from a stink pot....also on their way to the San Blas...exchanged a few stories by the time we were back at the Marina...
Guess I better back up a few days...Joyce wants me to tell you all about the shoreline we almost ran into on the sail down...it was Wed am.... ...I was trying to let Joyce get some extra sleep ...about 4 am...past my 3 hr shift change...I had made myself comfortable on the port side of the cockpit.....beautiful night...quarter moon off the port beam....remember...no booze on passages.....the moon looked like there was a eclipse....the dark side was visible ......I had been staring at the the moon for 5 minuets waiting for something to change...... .....all of a sudden we were ghosting along the shore of a tree lined river bank...just like the Tennessee River back in Chattanooga....I jumped up...started the engine....turned off the auto pilot.....turned hard to starboard....put the boat in hard reverse....and attempted to stop the boat from running aground on the shoreline....my heart skipped 20 beats before I realized that the clouds from the approaching squall had gotten the best of my sleep deprived brain...the radar had the squall up against us on the radar....damn....by this time Joyce was wondering what the hell I was doing....so I crashed and she went on watch...so much for her extras
sleep...I tried....LOL