Thus far in our 4-year cruising career we have entered and exited eight countries. Of course each country has its own laws, and some countries are more demanding than others, but they generally all follow the same format in processing cruising boats like The Fox. At a minimum, most every Latin country wants to see your travel permit ("Zarpe") designating your departure port and your destination port; your crew list ("Lista de Tripulantes"); copies of the photo page of all the crew's passports as well as the original passports; and your boat's registration. Plus bring cash for all the fees that may be charged by the port captain ("Capitanía"), Immigration ("Migración"), and/or Customs ("Aduana"). Some countries want their officials to come to your boat; others want you to come to them. With very few exceptions the officials we've dealt with have been consistently professional and helpful. It's a fairly standard drill and a cruiser soon gets used to who wants what, and when or where they want it.
That's the way I expected it to go when we entered Panama at Panama City/Balboa. Sure, it was December 20, close to the Christmas holidays, so I expected there to be some snafus. I did not expect the entry process to take three whole days. I later learned that the delay had nothing to do with the holidays; other cruisers told me they'd arrived weeks earlier than we had, and it still took three days. I also did not expect to spend two of those days trying to find someone - anyone - who would tell me where the port captain's office was. And I certainly did not expect the level of mass confusion amongst certain of the field officials as to what was actually required to enter Panama. Considering the gigabazillion vessels that process through the Panama Canal, I was simply expecting...more.
Some gringos gave me the condescending lecture of, "Hey, chill out, this is Latin America, you gotta have patience." Allow me to retort. I've been to other Latin countries, and they don't process entries this way. Here's how the rest of the hemisphere does it:
Mexico: you go to them. Offices in Ensenada are co-located in one building. Offices in Huatulco are close to each other. In either town, the officials will all tell you where to go next after each one finishes with you. Total time to enter: about 1-2 hrs.
El Salvador: in Barillas, all the officials come to your boat en masse. Total time to enter: 20 minutes.
Nicaragua: at Puesta del Sol, all the officials come to your boat en masse. Might take a few hours for them to travel from their office Corinto, but once at your boat the total time to enter: 20 minutes.
Costa Rica: you go to them. Offices in Playas del Coco are far apart but the officials will all tell you where to go next after each one finishes with you. Total time to enter: about 3 hrs. Same setup in Golfito, but total time there is about 2 hrs.
Ecuador: in Puerto Lucia, all the officials come to your boat en masse. Due to the volume of paperwork, total time to enter: 1 hr.
Panama: in Pedregal, we hear that most of the time is spent getting your boat up the estuary as you need 2 tide cycles to do it. Once there, you go to the officials. Total reported time to enter: about 2 hrs. not including your boat's travel time.
And in Panama City/Balboa: THREE DAYS.
if you enter from Balboa Yacht Club, the very professional Immigration official whose office is at the head of the dock stamps your passport, takes your money, arranges an appointment for the port captain to come to your boat, and then...the process comes to a flying stop. Port captain may or may not show; may or may not board your boat (they didn't, with us; but did, with other boats the very same day); they do not tell you that you need a cruising permit and if you know you need one they do not tell you where to get it. And it turns out you get it AT THE OFFICE RIGHT ACROSS THE HALL FROM THE PORT CAPTAIN. Folks, this performance is not normal to Latin America, and it's not even normal to Panama. This is a Balboa/Panama City thing. Be forewarned: literally everyone we've spoken to has had a completely different entry experience from everyone else. Below is my best guess as to how to get what you need without losing your mind:
1. Unless you've gone to the Balboa Yacht Club and gotten your passport stamped by the Immigration official at the Balboa Yacht Club, you will be dinghying ashore, getting in a taxi and asking the knowledgeable driver to take you to the Immigration Office in Balboa's Diablo district (somewhere near the Supermercado El Rey on the other side of the airport, upstairs from a Mercado Gourmet), so that they can stamp your passport, take your $25 fee, and officially welcome you to Panama. Hope you've asked the taxi driver to wait for you.
[UPDATE, 10.Feb.2011: The first stamp that Immigration makes in your passport when you enter Panama at Balboa, appears to be a *preliminary* stamp that's good for 72 hours -- allowing you 3 days to track down the Port Captain and Merchant Marine for their respective documents, before you return to the Immigration Office in the Diablo District for *final* Immigration processing. We did not know when we first checked in on 20.Dec.2010, that we had not finished with Immigation. We did not finish the process until 8.Feb.2011, i.e., 47 days late, when we blundered in tothe Diablo District Immigration office to ask for an extension on our visas. We did not get yelled at, and for $20 we got an additional 90 days on our 2 tourist visas. Plus fancy orange stamps in our passports. It seems now, that everyone checking in to Panama at Balboa, must go to the Immigration officers on the docks at either Balboa Yacht Club or Flamenco Marina, before even contacting the Port Captain or going to the Diablo District Immigration office. I'm still baffled at it all.]
2. Next stop in your taxi: the port captain's office at the "Puerto de Panama," Building 78. Do not try to find the Capitanía on foot. Their office is buried deep within the Port of Panama labyrinth of buildings and piers, and there are many large trucks moving freight containers very quickly all over the place. Busy, and dangerous it is.
3. Once you and your cab driver find Building 78 and the port captain's office, you will fill out with theport captain's help the long General Declaration ("Declaración General") form. You will need all your boat info to complete this form, such as your boat's serial number, gross tonnage, gallons of fuel, etc., so bring that along with your zarpe, registration, passports, and crew list. The Capitanía charges no fee, and will give you the pink copy of the Declaración. They will tell you you're done. You're not. Hope you've asked the taxi driver to wait for you.
[UPDATE, 10.Feb.2011: According to the Diablo District Immigration office, the Port Captain is supposed to *keep* the pink copy & give you all the other yellow and tan copies of the Declaration. It seems that either none of the government agencies are clear what the other agencies require for an efficient check-in; or that no agency is willing to 'fess up to having made a mistake.]
4. Go across the hall to the office of the Merchant Marine ("Marina Mercante") for your cruising permit for pleasure craft ("Permiso de Navegación para Naves de Placer"). It cost $193 for our 40-foot boat and is valid for 12 months after the date of issuance. We got ours on December 23, 2010, and it's good through December 22, 2011. If you entered at the Balboa Yacht Club and were lucky enough to have the port captian visit you and/or your boat (and thus already have your pink copy of the Capitanía's General Declaration form), you will still have to take a taxi to Port of Panama's Building 78 to get your cruising permit from the Marina Mercante.
5. NOW, you're done. Time to enjoy the city and the cruising community therein!
[I'll tell you how to check out of Panama in a later post. That is, if I ever figure out how to do it...]
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