Shipping is always the nightmare!!

 

Day two of the shipping process involved the mandatory narcotics inspections. Luis once again kindly collected us and drove us to the terminal through the busy Cartagena rush hour, where we put on our safety clothing, hard hat, high viz waistcoat and safety boots and collected our passes.

 

Everything had to be removed from the cars and laid out alongside. One German doctor who is driving a converted ex-military truck said he had over 90 boxes in his vehicle so we had to hope that our inspection would be before his! As always it was blisteringly hot in the customs shed, as firstly we took everything out of the cars and secondly waited for the inspection.

 

For all this tight security I spotted a “Master key” pass just tied up against a fence! Anyone could have picked it up and presumably entered anywhere in the terminal. So much for uber-tight security!

 

The inspection was eventually concluded with one guy looking through the cars and the containers and with a final sweep from a sniffer dog. As I am writing this it is clear to the readers that it all went fine and next up is to get the cars on the boat, Hoegh Beijing.

 

The boat is meant to arrive in port on Wednesday night, have a 6 hour turnaround and then 18 hours to Panama. If all goes according to plan that means it will arrive in Panama early on Thursday morning, giving us plenty of time to collect cars and be on our way.

 

Where ships are concerned, nothing ever seems to go according to plan. Firstly we are told that the port in Panama will close on Thursday at midday for the Easter holiday which makes for a very tight extraction. Even with this window available to us, Boris our agent in Panama tells us that he believes that there is only a 1% chance of extraction before Monday. Later we are told that the boat is delayed getting into the port before Cartagena and now won’t get into Panama before the port closes for Easter. Boris, our Panamanian agent, tells us that there is now no chance of getting the cars before Monday.

 

I wake having made the decision to fly home for the Easter weekend. I can catch a direct flight to Schiphol and connect to Heathrow arriving on Thursday and return on Sunday night via Bogota, arriving at 10:30 in Panama on Monday. I haven’t seen Alice or the children since the middle of January and a three day break will be good for me. Chris decides to do the same whilst Nigel, who has a co-driver arriving in Panama, decides to stay, planning to go sailing in the San Blas Islands for a couple of days. Barbara is already scheduled to return home after completing her South American co-driving stint. So despite the disappointment from our shipping company combined with the closure of the port and customs for Easter causing unavoidable delays, we will see our families for Easter.

 

Chris and I depart home on Wednesday night and Nigel heads for Panama on Thursday morning.

 

Sometimes things go better than plan and sometime worse and that is once again how the shipping proceeded. The boat was late into Cartagena but the port allowed Nigel to load all three cars so we knew they were safely on the boat. The cars headed for Panama and Nigel got his flight on Thursday morning.

 

 

 

Nigel had agreed with the shipping company, Hoegh, that he would offload the cars but when the time came was told by Boris that this wasn’t possible, the port wouldn’t allow access. After insisting that Hoegh had already given him permission and that the cars would be damaged if he didn’t drive them off the boat he was eventually given permission but sadly the damage was already done! Someone on the boat had tried to start the cars. Ham’s radiator was warm by the time Nigel arrived and more depressingly someone had managed to break Nigel’s starter motor (you can damage the starter motor or the Bendix if you don’t retard the ignition when starting which is what appears to have happened). What  frustratingly avoidable damage. If only those on the boat had just left the cars alone. I have to say that Nigel behaved with extraordinary patience, “all part of the rough and tumble of rally life”.

 

The good news is that David Ayre has a replacement starter motor and Bendix in stock and delivered them to Chris on Saturday who will hand carry it to Panama on Sunday night. Nigel has managed to extract all three cars from the port to Boris’ house and has removed the damaged starter motor so it is all ready to have the replacement fitted. All things being equal we will be back on the road on Monday afternoon.