Canal transit tomorrow and Sunday!!
24 November 2017 | Shelter Bay Marina, near Colon, Panama
Bill/Partly cloudy
We are transiting the Panama Canal tomorrow!!! We finally met with our agent yesterday in the late morning and he confirmed that we are set for transit on Saturday afternoon!! It's finally going to happen. It's taken us 3.5 weeks to get to this point and lots of work and waiting but it's happening.
We met with Roy and he went away with our passports and lots of copies of our paperwork--crew lists, documentation, and paperwork from us leaving Curacao with the promise of getting everything we need to have done, done and he's done it. We got emails from him this afternoon that we will have our line handler, lines and fenders here tomorrow afternoon at 1330 with us leaving here at 1500 and picking up our advisor at 1600 and then onto the canal for the first part of the trip. We will be spending Saturday night in Gatun Lake after going through a lock or three to get there and should be tied up to a mooring buoy by 1930(if we are lucky). We have three people helping us with the lines that are on boats here in the marina and one "professional" that the agent is bringing. I talked to a couple today that had just finished their transit and said it was really easy and great fun. They came with a couple that just bought their boat and have it moored in Panama City. Their plan is to take off for the Pacific Northwest and then Alaska.
We laid in just a few more food items for the "crew" today and I got our phone activated so we can make calls once we get to Panama City on Sunday. We have lots to do once we get the(fill the fuel tanks, check out of Panama and some more shopping for groceries. Then it's off for the Pearle Islands for a few days(depending on the weather)and then up toward Mexico. As to how we get to Mexico is up in the air at this time. Again, it depends of the weather, currents, etc.
With November being the rainiest month of the year here in Panama, I expect we will have some rain sometime during the crossing. It's virtually a certainty. We had several small storms loaded with rain come through just today.