Caught in Panama

This is the story about Frits du Bois and Reinhilde van der Kroef, a Dutch couple travelling through

the Caribbean on the sailing catamaran Bella Ciao, about how we were treated by the immigration

authorities in Panama.

The event happened between March 17 and 24 2015.

We were on our way to Panama to pick up a friend there mid-March.

We sailed to the Carti islands in the San Blas Archipelago, where the only road through the rainforest to

the rest of the world starts. We found a very nice anchorage to leave the boat for a day or two.  We leave

by taxi on Tuesday morning.

After picking up our friend on the airport and a visit to the famous Canal next morning, we leave with the

same taxi from Panama City back to the boat. We pick up another passenger and pass just as yesterday

a police roadblock in the Panamericana, near the small village of Chepo.  However, this time

our passports are being checked and it appears that we do not have the required stamp for the entry

of Panama in it. That is correct, for as yet we have not checked in.

We checked out in Colombia for a port further to the west (Portobello). We intended as we did

before in other countries, to check in there officially at a later point of time. We hadn’t done this yet,

because the last weeks the weather in this region was rather bad (more wind than usual and big

waves) and we did not want to sail this rough track at that moment, as we also had to return

immediately to San Blas to be in time to pick up our (disabled, moving in a wheelchair) friend  Janny

at the airport.

This we tried to explain to the immigration officer, who has by the police officer been called to our taxi

. He didn’t want to listen to our explanation – he stayed inexorable: we should come out of the taxi

and are not allowed to travel further. There was the talk of huge fines we should pay, up to the US $ 1000

or more!!! We are told that next afternoon we will be brought back to Panama City, where we are supposed

to pay the fine and that after that we will be set free…..Meanwhile, our friend is brought on board

with very kind and helpful to the taxi driver.

We stayed a night at the police station, then we were brought to Panama City to a male and female

‘Albergue’ respectively, which resembled more a prison, with grated doors, no daylight, hardly sanitary

accommodation etcetera. We were held here (separately) in custody from Thursday afternoon

till Monday evening. They took in our cellphones, iPad and several other devices so that we

were unable to communicate with each other or the outside world unless we used their public phone,

for which you needed coins we didn’t possess. Though we explained time and again that we wanted

to pay the fine, and we were able to do so, the officials over here were trying to take as much time

as possible to keep us in detention.

Finally, we paid the US $ 1000 each to buy our freedom back. In the end, we got back the passports with the receipt of the fine we paid, but without a stamp and were released, Monday evening at 19.00 pm.

After returning to the boat we checked in officially in Porvenir, we were lucky that the immigration

the officer was too lax to check with head office, so we got, at last, the official stamps in our passports (and

paid another US $ 100 pp) and since then we are legal in this country.

In the Albergue, we met with many other foreigners who reported the most incredible stories about the

way they were caught and ended up in this detention centre. One example was a crewmember of a

cruise ship, caught in a bar, without a passport.  As all crewmembers and passengers of cruise ships,

they do not get a stamp in their passport. So when his passport was brought he was taken in custody to

the Male Albergue and spent there several days, before being expelled from the country.

The conclusion in short: this country is not very cooperative in handling foreigners. We advise travellers to

Panama to immediately check in, to avoid problems as we encountered. It is said that policemen that

turn in foreigners whose papers are not 100% ok, ‘earn’ US $ 300 and 4 days off duty.

TIP: For those who look for a very committed and trustworthy taxi driver in Carti: Ruben Cardenas

Cellphone nrs: 507 67838328/507 60583301/507 64236718

April 5 2015

Frits du Bois/Reinhilde van der Kroef

SY Bella Ciao