Today we went to Limassol once again. At Limassol, we were able to meet with the companies that run the port. The first 2 companies we met with were the Dubai Ports World (DPW) and P&O Maritime. DPW is in charge of docking and taking care of the cruise and general cargo ships that come to the Limassol port. P&O provides pilotage services to the ships at the port. They have tug boats that help direct the ships to where they are supposed to dock at the port and pilots that go aboard the ships to help the captains of the ships dock safely and correctly. Later in the morning, we visited Eurogate, the company in charge of docking, loading, and unloading cargo container ships at the port. We had a tour of their part of the port and were able to see what machines they used to unload/load the containers on the ships and how this was done. They used very interesting cranes and straddle carriers to do this.

For lunch, we went to the old Limassol port and had American style food, such as burgers, fries, chicken tenders, etc. After lunch, we went back to the newer Limassol port to meet with Cyprus Port Authority (CPA) and Cyprus Shipping Agents Association (CSA) at the Limassol Chamber of Commerce. At this meeting, they talked more about what was done at the port and how all of the companies hired to work there by the government work together to make the docking and loading/unloading of ships fast and efficient. For example, they talked about why the port is run by private-owned businesses instead of the government. The short answer is that having it run by private-owned businesses allows politics to not get in the way of how the port is run.