Boats

Here is a riddle: if you have a boat on the Pacific coast of Panama, and a marine laboratory on the Caribbean coast, how can you get the boat to the laboratory?

Could you rent a trailer from one of the yacht clubs on the Pacific coast, take the boat to the Caribbean, and return the trailer? Could you drive the boat through the large waterway that connects the two coasts, also known as the Panama Canal? Could you borrow a trailer from the Caribbean coast, drive it to the Pacific coast, and drive back with both the boat and the trailer? Could you take one of the eight boats at the Smithsonian lab further up the coast and transport it, over land or water, to the lab without a boat?

Answer: None of the above. For reasons I do not understand, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute is incapable of using any of these transportation solutions. The marine lab is left without a boat, and researchers such as myself are left unable to do our research that requires boat transportation. If not for the large ships lined up to enter the canal and the oil refinery nearby, I would just paddle myself to the site in a kayak. Unfortunately, it is pretty far, the water can be choppy, and I don't have a kayak available any more than a larger boat. This has been the case for two trips I have taken to the lab in question in the last six months. I don't know if this is a reflection of bureaucracy in general, the Smithsonian specifically, Panamanian culture or the American government. Regardless, the idiocy of the situation is infuriating.