We’re in the Caribbean!! We went through the canal a couple of days ago, no problems just a long time to go essentially 40 miles. We started the first day of the transit at 4 am with Tom going around the anchorage in the dingy picking up our crew. We pulled the very muddy anchor just as the sun was coming up and motored around the corner to where our advisor was supposed to meet us at 5:45.
Here are a couple more pictures of the tires tied to the side and the old pillows protecting the solar panels
Paul and Sam getting the long lines on the bow straightened out.
We waited at the rendezvous spot, and waited… Drank coffee and ate cinnamon rolls. Finally at about 9 am “Freddie” our advisor showed up.
We’re ready to go
For locking up, we were scheduled to side tie to the Canal tug Changuinola. The Changuinola ran along next to us as we made our way to the first locks and started showing off by doing spins.
We’re approaching the first lock, the tug is already tied up.
We had a little bump tying up to the tug and heard a big CRACK! We carefully inspected the side but couldn’t find any damage. Later we decided that the noise we heard was one of the tires squeaking against the side.
After that the rest of the lock up was uneventful. We waved to the people watching:
As we were locking up, we passed this bulls eye; When you center-lock in the locks there are line handlers that throw a line down with a big monkey fist on the end (hence the pillows covering the solar panels). You catch the monkey fist and tie it to your heavy 125 foot dock lines and they pull them back up to the side. The bull's-eye target and the high-bar is where the line handlers practice their marksmanship. Twice a year they have a contest.
Soon we were locked up and proceeded to motor across lake Gatun. There was lots of traffic on the lake, but the rain finally stopped.
We got to the other side where the “down” locks were at about 3pm. The two previous trips through Tom and I did we locked down at 4 and 4:30 so I thought that we would make it in one day but Freddie said no, we would have to spend the night in the lake. Good thing I brought lots of food and drinks.
They don’t allow you to anchor in the lake, instead you side tie to this big rubber disk. We were worried how we were going to do this but as it turns out it was easy and the rubber island was very stable.
Here’s Freddie getting picked up by the pilot boat.
We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beer and swimming in the lake.
Our new advisor for the lock-down was supposed to show up at 8am but guess what, he didn’t get to the boat until 3pm. The morning had been sunny and clear, perfect weather for a transit but by the time the advisor got there, the sky had opened up and it was dumping. We did a center lock on the way down so all five of us were kept busy.
Other than quite a lot of current in the locks, which kept Tom busy at the helm, we wad a soggy but uneventful lock-down and soon we were motoring towards Shelter Bay marina. The marina is set right at the edge of the jungle so there are lots of birds flying over and howler monkeys at night, but the bugs are pretty fierce. It’s nice to be in a marina again with easy access to the shore, hot showers and a pool but we’ll only be here a few more days then off to the San Blas islands.
). We have four gigantic lines and ugly tires hanging on our sides. We conned three of our friends into going with us, we think we’re ready. If anyone wants to try to spot us going into the first set of locks, here is a link to a web cam: