We have been working on North Star for so long in Shelter Bay Marina the words "ready to go" are an understatement. We feel we have done some type of replacement or upgrade to many aspects of the boat, inside and out.

We picked a date of January 25th to transit the canal. We did not realize until a week or so after we selected our date that the date was right in the middle of the ARC Round the World Rally transit times. We decided to move our date to the following Saturday, February 1st, because of the rally and our friends, Sid and Manuela, could not make the date on the 25th either.
First we contacted an agent, he set up an appointment with the admeasurer for the boat. They measure the boat from the anchor to the end of the dinghy davits, go over some information and check to make sure we have an adequate head for the advisor. We paid our agent, Eric Galvez, for his services including fenders not tires, lines and the canal fees. For a boat our size, fifty-two feet, the fees were around 2000 dollars. A few days before our date the fenders and lines arrived. Manuela and Sid came over from Linton on Friday night. We had a nice meal at the restaurant and prepared the boat for the transit. We had to cover the solar panels on top of the hardtop to protect them from the monkey fist the lie handlers on the walks of the canal throw down to the boats in order to work the lines back and forth. On Saturday we were told to be at "the flats", an area where boats anchor and wait for their advisor, at one p.m. For our advisor to arrive at three. As we heard happens many times, the advisor arrived closer to five-thirty. We made our way to the first set of three locks, the Gatun Locks in the dark. These locks take the boats up 85 feet. We were rafted to a catamaran and had a large container ship behind us. After completing the locks we made our way to the giant moorings in Gatun Lake around ten p.m. We have been here twice and the lake is very calm and there is not a breath of air. We were up the next day around six a.m. Our advisor arrived around eight and we started making our way to the Pedro Miguel Locks then on to the Miraflores Locks. It was very windy on the second day. We had to use reverse to keep from entering the lock too soon on a few occasions. After we passed through these locks, we could see the Pacific Ocean and the Centennial Bridge. Transiting the canal in your own boat can be a stressful two days because many things can go wrong and you are in control of only a few of these things. We had great crew, Hans, Dillon, Sid and Manuela. The men took care of the lines and rafting and the girls took care of the food. Our experience was very pleasant and we luckily had no problems. We dropped of Hans and Dillon at the Balboa Yacht Club along with twelve dollars for the panga driver and all of the lines and tires. We decided to anchor on the La Playita side because of all the bad stories we have heard about the condition of the night dock on the Las Brisas side. Manuela made us a fantastic dinner and we had champagne to celebrate the crossing.

We have been enjoying the proximity to the city. Abundant restaurants and grocery stores, other cruisers, taxis and 25 cent bus rides to Albrook Mall. We have received our long term stay visa for French Polynesia. It took almost a month, a few trips to the French Embassy with some paperwork and a few hundred dollars. This is also the first time I have ever needed a copy of our marriage certificate.

We are waiting patiently for some wind to head to the Galapagos. The wind has been very light, confused or directly on the nose for most of the last two weeks.