Oh golly! It's been 2 weeks since my last confession - I mean Blog entry! Well, so much has happened since then, I don't know where to begin. A good start is the Panama Canal transit; it was excellent, totally novel, and bizarre, and extraordinary, and a dream-come-true experience.
I felt very honoured to be chosen as linehandling crew aboard So Long a small yacht Captained by Susanne a solo female German Skipper.
Uli was a linehandler for Galenaia Captained by Tony a solo male English Skipper.
Ironically, Susanne and Tony are married and are full time yachtees and sail together - but apart if you see what I mean, because they are in separate yachts. The only downside is that Tony's boat is a lot smaller than Susanne's and so he sails a lot slower - sometimes he will arrive at a destination WEEKS after Susanne. Tony needs to get a bigger boat, or stop snoring!!! That could be another reason why they sail separately. Susanne has sweet Honey the dog to keep her company too.
We were up before dawn for the transit. Got to Balboa Harbour meeting point at 0415 hrs. Well in time for 0500 hrs departure. But in fact we were left hanging around for hours awaiting a 'Panama Canal Pilot' to come aboard and escort us through the canal - a regulation for all ships, no matter the size.
We transited the canal from the Pacific side to the Caribbean/Atlantic side. You can of course go both ways.
Yachts are not allowed to sail near the locks so we motored to the first lock - Miraflores. There was
*Susanne the Captain
*me
*another Gringa volunteer from a yacht (she wanted to have a test-run through the canal to learn the ropes before she brought her own yacht through)
*2 linehandlers rented locally; a couple of young girls wanting to earn a bit of extra cash
So, five female crew, plus the Pilot.
We rafted up to Galenaia with rope so that we were 2 yachts travelling in parallel.
We motored to the first gates Miraflores which consists of 2 locks and this raises you 2 levels up. Then you exit and motor about a mile and then you enter the Pedro Miguel locks and that raises you to the level of the Gatun lake.
For technical detail read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal_Locks
Suffice to say that the locks are absolutely huge, the ships seem huger and there is a lot of fiddling and hawling long, long lengths of rope to keep you in the right place at the right time within the lock. It is similar to going through a lock on the Thames river in England except that it is on a massive, awesome and sometimes overwhelming scale. And for bigger ships there are mules - heavy machines - that run along tracks to keep the big ships in position with chains.
Then you sail through the lake and keep in between the green and red buoys and try not to hit other ships travelling in the other direction.
We tied up to a buoy overnight. The pilot was picked up and then we had a little celebration party.
Next day we went through the Gatun locks. The Pilot was brought back to the yacht (a different one, nice but not as friendly and cute as the last one) then we were rafted up again and this time another gringo yacht joined us so we now had 3 yachts rafted together in parallel.
At Gatun locks we dropped down to the Atlantic sea level. Then the pilot was taken off the boat and we were dropped off on land near Colon, a notorious city, to find out way back to Harvey. This was easy even though it was so late. We caught a cab, then a bus, then a cab and we were home before midnight.
It was too late for one of the boy's crew - Ben - to get a ride in a dingy back to his yacht at Balboa Harbour, so I invited him to sleep over in Harvey. We had a little nightcap together and toasted our good fortune and novel experience.
Next day, we took Ben back to his yacht. We were invited to lunch on his yacht.How lovely!!
It was an amazing and great experience and I throughly recommend it as 'bucket list' activity. In fact, I think Panama is a great country and would recommend a visit here.
It must have been nerve wracking for the Yacht Captains though; they went through a lot of planning and logistics and work and great cost to do the crossing. We just turned up for the ride.
The Captains would have paid about 600US for each small yacht plus 65US per day for the rented linehandlers X 2, plus additional long rope ($150 US), plus a huge refundable deposit that they will only get back if they caused no damage to the lock system, plus food and drink for the crew and pilot, plus tyres to protect the yacht from the locks and visa versa. Plus mega shopping and taking on of provisions and drinking water, because as soon as they popped out on the Atlantic side, they were heading for England!
We had a really fabulous time and felt extremely privileged and honoured to have been part of the adventure. I said a few silent words for the >22,000 !!! people who gave their lives to build this canal.
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