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Location: Panama City, Republic of Panama

The big news – we just completed the Panama Transit. We were scheduled to transit on Tuesday, but after getting up at 4:30 am and waiting for 3 hours they called and canceled the transit until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we again awoke at 4:30, but this time the advisor came aboard so we knew that we had a better chance of making it through. Around 6:30 we finally took up the anchor for the motor to the first set of locks. Two other boats were scheduled to transit with us: Marianne and Cheesie. Both were mono-hulls and would raft to Thanks Larry while in the locks. On the Atlantic side there are three locks end on end. You enter at sea level and exit 85-feet above sea later onto Lake Gatun. Just before we entered the locks, Marianne and Cheesie came up and rafted onto us. Marianne was on our port and Cheesie on starboard. Now we were a quadmaran at least for the next 85 vertical feet and 3000 horizontal feet – they would stay tied to us until we reached Lake Gatun.

With Chris at the helm of Thanks Larry our small flotilla motored in the first lock behind an automotive carrier – otherwise known as a “RoRo” – for Roll on Roll Off.  It is an ocean going parking lot and it is 800-feet long and 96 feet wide. The locks are 1000-feet long and 100-feet wide, so this RoRo had only 2 feet to spare on either side. We entered the east or left lock. The Panama Locks are actually two sets of lock that work in parallel with each other. The two sets of locks are known as east and west locks and operate independent of each other. Two lanes of traffic are accommodated in manner.

Inside the locks the top of the lock wall is more then 20-feet above us. Lock workers on the top toss down light lines with a monkey-fist tied to end. They land with a thunk on the deck and the line handlers on our newly acquired outside hulls tie their heavy lines to the end. The lock workers haul the lines up and loops are dropped over the bollards and the line handlers down below snug up the lines. An alarm bell sounds and the 20-foot door behind us start to swing closed. It takes nearly a minute before the doors are shut and the water starts swirling below us and we start inching up.

10-foot diameter tunnels connect the locks and channel water from the upper lock or lake into the lower lock. 20-million gallons of water raise us up from the lower level to the next lock level. As the water comes up the line handlers must struggle to keep the boats from being overcome with the viscous currents and take up the slack on the lines. On Thanks Larry, we have two 40 foot fenders called Marianne and Cheesie so the lock walls are not as much a threat to us.  Finally we are only a few feet lower then the lock wall and after a few moments of peace the prop for the RoRo starts turning and a wild current of white-water is rushing towards us. It seem to take forever - like it is moving in slow motion – but soon enough the lines are taught again and straining. This is the most dangerous part – the current wash from the big RoRo is violent and treacherous. Our little flotilla is swung left then right and pushed back all at the same time. As the wall of water hits the back gate it backs up and hits us from behind creating standing wave all around us. After a tense minute it is over, and our path is open to the next lock.

The line handlers pull back the heavy lines and with the light heaving lines still attached we motor ahead into the next lock while four lock workers walk the heaving lines forward to the next lock. Once in position the heavy lines are pulled back to the lock walls and made fast. The doors closed and the ride starts again and again. The final lock door opens and we motor out to Gatun Lake 84 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s a 27 nautical mile motor over Gatun Lake to the next set of locks that will start to take us down to the Pacific Ocean. We are motoring about a knot faster then our lock mates in a hour or so we lose sight of them. We are even keeping up with the RoRo that we locked up with. We sort of, we can use a short cut across the lake that deep draft vessels can’t.

At the north end of Gatun lake is Gaillard Cut – it cuts a swath 7 miles through the continental divide and ends at the first step down Pedro Miguel Locks where we are lowered 9 meters to Miraflores lake, a small artificial lake that separates the two sets of Pacific locks. In San Pedro lock we tie on to a tug, but instead of being behind the RoRo we are in front of it. The tug handles all the lines and we get a free ride down. In the last two locks we will lock down “center chamber”

We enter the lock with our heavy lines ready. On both sides of the lock workers stand ready and they toss their heaving lines across and just like locking up we tie our heavy lines on. After motoring to the end of the lock, they secure the lines to the lock wall. Now we wait for the RoRo to be maneuvered into the lock. It seems to take forever with two tugs working the big ship into place. They only have 2 feet on either side so spare. Finally the big ship is just behind us and the water starts to go down. It is calm, placid and just a little too warm. We are guzzling water, Gatoraid and whatever else we can get our hands on. As soon as the lock doors are open we are walked forward to the last lock.  With the big ship all ready in the lock, it is ushered forward under it own power, but it kept in the center by 8 small electric engines on a cog railway.

We take one more trip down to sea level and as the last door opens salt water kisses our hull and the Bridge of Americas comes into view. It is the only land link over the canal, which divides Panama and Central America. Rumor has it that if you throw a nickel over board as you cross under the bridge it will bring you good luck. I throw a Panamanian and a US nickel just in case.

Kim and Kim