The Panama Canal transit
27 November 2017 | Balboa Yacht Club, Panama City, Panama
Bill/sunny
We are now sitting at “the flats”, a place where all small boats go to wait for their “advisors “ for the transits. We left Shelter Bay Marina about 1245 and our advisor just showed up at 1605. We will be having a big boat go in ahead of us and then a smaller cabin cruiser and then us and we will be tying up to the cabin cruiser for the transmit. Right now, it's 1615 and we wait till everything lines up and we can make our way up to the first lock. According to the schedule, we should be through and in Gatun Lake by 1730 and then tie up to a mooring for the night and then off again tomorrow morning about 0730 for the rest of the transit. Uses we will see.
Once Rick showed up, we waited for a short while since he had to check in with the canal authority and then we were off, getting passed by the big container ship that was going in the lock first. Then came a tug, a small power boat and us. The tug attached to the canal wall and the the small power boat and then us. All side by side. I don't think the power boat was happy as we are bigger than they are and by the next lock it was decided that we would be the meat in the three boat sandwich. The power boat would raft up to us on our port side in the second lock. It took a while for all of us to get in position and tied off before the water started filling the lock and up we went. Once it was filled, the freighter went out first, then the power boat detached and went out and then us and then the tug last and we were in the Gatun Lack for the night. Our advisor knew where to take us and we tied up along side another pair of sailors making the transit for the night. During the night, we got about 8 inches of rain(filling a bucket on deck). Our advisor was taken off our boat about 1900 and we all settled in after a nice chat in the cockpit.
Come Sunday, we were told our advisor would be on board by 0700 and we would be underway by 0730. I jokingly told Tracy I was going to sleep in till 0800 and that would have been about right as he (Rafa) showed up at 0830 telling us we had to leave as soon as possible as we were late and now instead of the normal 5 knots, he wanted us to do over 6 knots. We were told again the order for the locks with a small passenger/site seeing boat toed to the wall and then on their port side. Once we got to the first lock, we had to sit and wait, circling over and over till the other boats showed up. I'd asked if we could slow down as we had left before the big car carrier that was to go with us had left the lake and we passed the small site seeing boat along our way. The advisors answer was no, at least not until we were bout a half mile from the lock and we had to just stop and wait and wait and wait, slowly repositioning ourselves in the channel. Almost an hour later, the rest of the boats showed up and the Lock Master changed who was going through adding on a tug boat as well as one of the canal service boats. It was going to be a full lock. With these boat still not there, we had to wait a while longer eventually getting tied to the side of the lock to wait.
Once everyone arrived, we all powered in with us tied to the site seeing boat as he was tied to the wall of the lock. Behind us was the tug and the service vessel, tied side by side and behind us all was the car carrier looming over us. To say we felt small was an understatement.
The doors closed and the locks drained and we progressed to the second and third locks and made our way finally back into the Pacific Ocean.
We check out this afternoon and will be under way tomorrow as it looks now. Up the coast towards Mexico!
Don't miss all the pictures I posed before this post.