26th & 27th April

09 22. 025 N
79 56.642 W

Weather; hot and humid, wind n/a, waves n/a

26th

Today was the day that we finally got the confirmation from our agent that he had actually received our transit fee from our bank, a sigh of relief all round on that one as we are still waiting for the email from our bank with the information as to where they sent the money to! So along with the confirmation we also received 6 huge fenders and 4 enormous lines which we need to use for the transit, we are now set to go. The date has been confirmed as being Friday 30th April for starting our transit, putting us into the Pacific on the 1st May. We haven't an exact time for starting out as yet but all small craft (that's us) are usually scheduled to begin the transit late afternoon or early evening. We will have 3 line handlers joining us as we leave the marina and head in towards the area known as the flats where we will have to wait around, at anchor, until we are joined by our adviser who is dropped off by a tug or pilot boat for the first part of the transit. So in total there will be 6 of us on board as we go through the first set of locks. Once we clear these locks we have to tie up to a dolphin (a sort of large floating pontoon) in the Gatun Lake for the night and our adviser leaves us. In the morning (far too early for my liking, from memory of last time) we are joined by a new adviser who completes the second stage of the transit with us. If all goes well we should be arriving into Balboa by mid-afternoon where we have arranged a mooring at the Balboa Yacht club. Our line handlers and the second adviser will leave us at this point and we can start putting the boat back in order once again after having the extra bodies on board for meals and sleeping arrangements and this is also where we have to return the lines and fenders. Gerry and I have been trying to think of all the things that we had to do last time around to prevent any damage to our boat and to make sure that we all get fed and watered. It is the silly little things that tend to catch you out so we have made certain that we have plenty of toilet paper, enough food to feed a hungry army for at least 4 meals, enough space for an extra 3 bodies to be able to sleep in relative comfort and enough water for everyone to be able to have a shower. I'm sure we will have forgotten something but its only for 2 days and a night so we will survive it. We have also to prepare the solar panels against damage as the guys on the side of the locks have to lob lines out to our boat and these lines have quite solid (think rocks) monkey fist knots at the end of them which if they thud onto the solar panels could crack or break the panels - not something we need to be replacing or doing without. Our line handlers on the boat are experienced at preventing the monkey fists from doing damage but there is always the possibility of one going astray. The lines that we have on our boat are then attached to the ones thrown out by the lock guys and are tensioned up to keep our boat steady in the lock when the water is forced in. It gets quite turbulent and the level rises quite rapidly so the line handlers need to keep the tension on the lines to make sure the boat doesn't get damaged by moving around during the process. When we did this transit before it poured with rain from the moment we set out for the flats and we did the transit to the Gatun Lake in teeming rain, we are hoping that the rain stays away this time so that the photos that I will try to take are not just for rain pouring down the enclosure, either way I'll be in the dry as I will be on the helm, Gerry will be acting as the 4th line handler. We have no idea how we will be transiting - either on our own, rafted up with other boats or alongside a tug tied to the wall, I'm sure someone will tell us in due course. Also in preparation we have put our names down to do a last shop on Wednesday morning and a load of laundry on Thursday morning - these things all need some forethought to arrange as there are limited numbers for each activity each day (like only 10 people on the bus to go shopping). At this point I think we have all bases covered, fingers crossed! We spent the afternoon watching a Netflix series and then went to the restaurant for dinner, making the most of not having to cook!

27th

Another day to ponder about the things we might have forgotten, not that anything really came to mind so maybe we are really organised! Gerry kept busy for the morning having a second go at the stanchion that he worked on a couple of days ago, he's not happy with it and I suspect that it will be a while before we get it seen to so that it meets his satisfaction. We had a bit of a walk around the marina where we bumped into Gavin and Shona who are finally having their boat splashed again today. Shona asked what time we were going to head out to the viewing platform over the first lock, I was a little surprised by the question as Gerry had enquired about the place being open, found out that it was currently closed and had messaged Gavin to let them know that we wouldn't be able to go. Gavin had replied so we knew that he had seen the message but he had apparently forgotten to let Shona know. It was disappointing all round as it is an amazing feat of engineering to witness the process involved when a large super tanker goes through the locks.
For want of something to write about today I thought I'd give you some information about the Panama Canal, if you think this sounds familiar, you are 100 % correct, I've just lifted it straight from my blog from our previous trip so prepare to hear it all again! (there will be a test sometime in the future so you had better absorb it all).
Then I've added some updates about the new locks.

Originally the canal was opened in 1919 and the size of the ships was limited by the size of the locks, these ships were called Panamax and had a maximum tonnage of 52500 tons. Due to increased usage and an increase in the size of ships being built, new canal locks were proposed for the Panama Canal in the 1930s to ease congestion and allow larger ships to pass, the project was abandoned in 1942.
In 2006 the Panama Canal Authority held a referendum for Panamanian citizens to vote on the Panama Canal expansion project which was approved by a wide margin.
Construction of the new locks began in 2007 and the new locks opened on 26 June 2016.
These new locks are parallel to the original locks, starting at Gatun, where the new locks are called the Agua Clara Locks. There are 3 Locks making up the Agua Clara Locks.
The second section of new locks are called the Cocoli Locks and run parallel to the Miraflores Locks.
All of the super-sized ships use these new locks whilst smaller traffic continues to use the original locks.
The new locks can now handle vessels with a capacity of up to 14000 x 20 foot containers whereas previously it could only handle vessels up to about 5000 x 20 foot containers.
New ships designed for the new canal locks are called Neopanamax or New Panamax with a maximum tonnage of 120000 tons - Huge! The difference is mostly in the width and the draft although the length has also increased.
The width has increased from 106 feet to 168 feet while the draft has increased from 39.5 feet to 50 feet.
The effect has been that the European and US ports have had to be made deeper and bridges have had to be raised or altered to accommodate the larger sized ships.
The canal is 50 miles long from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
It runs from northwest to southeast with the Atlantic entrance being 33.5 miles north and 27 miles west of the Pacific entrance.
The sea level section of the canal is 6.5 miles long. This section of the channel is 500 feet wide.
Ships are raised or lowered 85 feet in a continuous flight of 3 steps at Gatun Locks and the new Agua Clara Locks.
Each chamber is 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long in the original locks and 168 + feet wide and 1200 feet long in the new locks.
The length of the Gatun Locks, including the two approach walls, is 1.2 miles.
After traversing the Gatun Locks there is a 23.5 mile passage through Gatun Lake to the north of Gaillard cut. The Lake covers an area of 163.38 square miles.
Gaillard cut is 8 miles long.
At the south end of Gaillard cut smaller ships enter the 5/6 mile long Pedro Miguel Locks and are lowered 31 feet to the 1 mile wide Miraflores Lake.
The 2 step Miraflores Locks follow and are a little over 1mile long, lowering the ships back down to sea level on the Pacific side.
The new super-sized ships go through the one step Cocoli locks to reach the same sea level on the Pacific Ocean side.
Now that I've totally confused you with facts and figures about the Canal you need to look at the photo with great care as I will expect you to be able to reproduce it from memory during the up - coming test!
I hope that you find some of this interesting as it is a wonder of our times and that at the very least you retain something for those trivial pursuit games in the future where you can astound everyone with your knowledge.
So with nothing else happening for the rest of the day we resorted to cooking on the boat, watching TV and having an early night.