Yesterday evening we went through the Gatun Locks, which lead from the Atlantic side of Panama to Gatun Lake. We had a friend in from NY as well as Rudi, who went through with us the first time around, two advisors (one in training) and of course Andrew, Chris and myself. We rafted up with a steel boat called Sabbatical and the two of us went through center chamber behind a large cargo ship, Argente, carrying fruit. All went quite smoothly - we motored into the locks, the canal line handlers threw us long lines with large knots (monkey's fists) on the end, we tied our lines to them, and they took them back up and secured us to the sides of the canal. As the gates closed behind us in each lock, we would take up slack on our lines to keep us centered. We went through three locks, which took about an hour and a half, and arrived in peaceful Gatun Lake where we tied up to a mooring bouy for the night. We had dinner and a fun evening catching up and celebrating our journey into the Pacific !