The only good thing about retrieving GANNET2 from the container was the ease of removal.
It was a tight fit, such that the young man whose job it was to remove the front straps and chocks had to climb up a ladder onto the roof of GANNET2 and slide carefully to the front.
Getting the rear chocks and straps out was tough enough.
You will also notice there is a full sized metal plate that butts perfectly against the lower edge of the container.
As long as I followed the hand signals and backed gently it was fine. I got out and was relieved to find no damage anywhere.
Layne had thought to hang Damp Rid bags and they collected tons of moisture so that had been a good idea. There was no musty smell in our home at all.
Everything was as we had left it down to the odd extra dog hair donated by the Chief Security Officer.
I cannnot describe the required process to get our vehicles released from the bonded area of the port, as I shall try to illustrate. Our shipping agent did it all behind the scenes and out of sight and we just went where we told when we were told. It was decidedly weird. This is what we found on arrival for instance: keep out! Serious stuff.
Our vehicles were in Colombia but at the sane time they weren’t. The seal had to be broken in our presence and only then could we look at our cars and as mine was at the back I got to crawl in right away!
All this took place on Monday. Our containers arrived in port Thursday evening. Our shipping agent Ana Rodriguez had a notarized power of attorney to act on our behalf dealing with customs and she started the paperwork on Friday to allow the vehicles to be removed from the containers, which are much in demand these days.
I immediately started to inflate the tires which is a slow steady process with our DeWalt, as I didn’t want to drive on almost flat tires. The yellow tape on the hood is some port authority code describing which container our vehicles are bonded from.
The rules to enter the port are laborious and strict. Long sleeves, long pants closed toed shoes ( in 95 degrees and 100% humidity!) a high viz vest and hard hat provided by Ana’s office and a special pass visible at all times. Thus:
Also the day you drive out you must have contractor alcohol on their breathalyzer I’m told thus no drinking the night before. I didn’t care but my French fellow travelers were shocked by that news.
The paper trail was made more mysterious by the shortcomings of our shipping agent who I’m sorry to say has no communication skills or training in customer service. The worst of it is you are helpless and her lack of attention to detail makes the process much more stressful. I never felt I was in the hands of a trained professional. She misspelt names, sent us to incorrect or incomplete addresses and never kept us apprised of progress or what was to come next. It gave me a foul mood a headache.
To her credit she got the job done and pretty quickly too. I could have taken GANNET2 out of the port on Tuesday but my insurance policy didn’t come through because she said her agents couldn’t find the brand: RAM. I sent her an ad for the main Jeep/Dodge/Ram dealer in Colombia so I think my van is now branded a Dodge which they do have in their files. But you can’t get instant coverage here. The policy takes two days to go in effect!
Also the work of the customs (DIAN) inspector gets emailed to Bogota -seriously- for approval before we could get our temporary import permits. The main office doesn’t trust the main port to do it right I guess. This sort of bureaucracy you never see in the US do next time you think you are suffering at the DMV just remember Colombia..!
So there it is. Done in some confused manner and now hopefully we wait till Wednesday. Then we park GANNET2 in a city lot until Sergio arrives from Panama Friday lunchtime. Then we install the rooftop a/c and by the weekend I hope we are on our way. Somewhere.
