Panama Canal and Beyond

By 6pm on Tues 26th Feb we were all ready to go. The sides hung with old car tires covered in bin bags as fenders, as normal ones can pop if you are unlucky enough to be thrown against the lock walls or another boat. On board we had our 3 extra line handlers, a NZ couple and an American. All experienced sailors, Doug the American has a captain's licence. This proved to be a good move - one other boat had friends on board who didn't know how to put a line round a cleat or tie a knot which caused problems. Then our pilot/advisor Victor came aboard. He was responsible for telling us where to go and what to do, but did not drive the boat or handle lines. He said that our transit was delayed so we might as well stay at anchor for a while - a good time to eat dinner without distraction.

Eventually we moved off towards the Gatun locks, but then more delays and we had to 'hover' for another couple of hours. Finally we rafted up with two other sailing boats, and moved together into the first lock. The advisor on the middle boat takes charge of the raft at this stage. Line handlers on the lock walls then throw light lines with a 'monkey fist' on the end for us to tie to our heavy mooring lines. They are very expert at this, and we saw a large target like an archery target which they use for practice. Our lines were hauled in and attached to bollards, the huge hydraulic gates closed behind us, and very quickly the water level started to rise. Water enters the lock through large holes in the floor so it comes bubbling up and is pretty turbulent.

About 20 minutes later we were up, the gates ahead of us opened, and we motored into the next lock with the handlers on the wall walking with the lines. We had a ship in the lock ahead of us, and it was towed from lock to lock by powerful 'mules' on rails. The process was repeated through all three of the Gatun locks, raising us 85ft altogether. Then we were out in Gatun Lake which is a man made freshwater lake supplying water for the Canal. By this time it was 3am, and we tied up to large mooring buoys in the lake, the advisor was taken off, and the rest of us went straight to bed for a rather short night's sleep.

We were woken at 6am by howler monkeys on the wooded islands nearbye, so Geoff and I got up and scrubbed the decks down while we had nice clean fresh water - Colon is a dirty place, oily harbour water and smoke and dust in the air. At 6.30 our new advisor, Harold, came aboard. It is a very pleasant 31 mile trip over the lake to the next locks, so we were able to relax and enjoy the scenery. Lots of little islands to begin with, then the narrow Galiot cut, made at the cost of many lives. It is now being widened to take the extra traffic which will be using it when the new larger locks are completed in a few years time. We saw crocodiles basking on the mud at the edges, oblivious to the earth moving vehicles working near them.

Once again we rafted up to enter the Pedro Miguel Lock, this time with a less efficient advisor on the middle boat so there was some confusion about instructions and problems staying parallel to the lock walls. With a French crew on the middle boat, and a Cuban American on the far one, there was a lot of shouting and arm waving and total mayhem! We also had to wait for a while for a couple of tourist launches which were late arriving. Just the one lock, then a small lake to cross (there is a fault in the ground in this area and it wasn't possible to build a continuous line of locks). Finally into the Miraflores locks. Miraflores has a large visitors centre so we had a big audience. It also has a continuous webcam so that it is possible to watch the progress of shipping on the internet. Unfortunately the cameras caught us entering the lock, then swung away, disappointing for family and friends who had hoped to catch a glimpse.


Miraflores has two connecting chambers, then the gates open onto the Pacific with a view of the Bridge of the American ahead ("a bit like a mini Sydney Harbour bridge" was the comment). We had made it with boat and crew intact! Our valient extra crew were put ashore at the Balboa Yacht Club along with tyres and lines, where a pre-arranged taxi was waiting to return them to Colon. We picked up a mooring, and, exhausted, had the best cold beer we'd tasted for a while.