35 NOVEMBER 2024 WorldWide Drilling Resource® by Tim Rasmussen The container was loaded at the shop in Spokane, Washington, on July 18. The loading was done without any problems except for the driver not being able to get squarely backed up to the shop door. No one was injured as we loaded the 50,000 pounds of tools, material, drilling supplies, and medical equipment. The container went by truck to Seattle, was gated into the pier for loading on the MSC Sofia Paz, and departed on July 19. Rather than traveling immediately south, the Paz went to Vancouver, Canada, and stayed for about five days - loading or waiting. It is impossible to tell which from the ship locator website I have access to. The Sofia Paz traveled to an area outside of San Francisco Bay in California, then tracked slowly north and south while waiting for a spot to open at the Port of Oakland in California. When a spot became available, the Paz docked for about 48 hours and then headed back out to sea with the next stop scheduled to be Long Beach, California. Again, the boat was required to delay entry into the Port of Long Beach. This time, the ship anchored off the coast while it waited. Finally, a spot opened and the Sofia Paz darted into the Port of Long Beach, unloaded and loaded some containers, then headed out again, traveling south along the Mexican coast of Baja California, then into the open ocean going south to Central America. The Sofia Paz arrived at the Port of Cristobal, which is near the entrance to the Panama Canal. There it waited with about 50 other ships for the Canal Authority to allow the ships to go through the canal. During this time, the ship unloaded the container sent by Water for Life. I was unable to track the individual container on the MSC website beyond the unloading at Cristobal, but I was able to find that the Sofia Paz went on through the Canal and, as of this writing, is visiting harbors in the Mediterranean. I hope our container is not still onboard. Gary contacted our shipping agent in New York and all he could tell us was the container was unloaded at Cristobal and due into Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, on September 20. Perhaps there will be other delays, but this is the schedule now. How it is getting from Cristobal to Puerto Barrios is unknown to us. The paperwork shows the shipping destination to be Puerto Barrios, so it will get there somehow, maybe, we hope. International shipping is becoming more and more uncertain. Delays are common and occur without notice; and while sometimes we know the reason, like the lack of rainfall in Panama, there are other reasons which are not communicated to us. We are left to trust more completely in our shipping agent, the Good Lord. He alone knows how to make sure the containers we send travel safely and make it to their intended destinations. We just trust in Him and do the best we can. He takes care of the rest. If you would like to help, contact Gary Bartholomew at 509-939-1941. Tim michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com WTR Booth 732
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