Dec
Am not in the Pacific itself quite yet — technically I’m in the Gulf of Panama or the Bay of Panama, depending on which chart you’re looking at — but finally am on the right side of the Continental Divide.
Transiting the Panama Canal southbound was a two-day affair: first we went through the Gatun locks in late afternoon, then once in Gatun Lake motored a couple of miles east and took a huge mooring ball for the night. The Gatun locks lift you up (if you’re going south) some 84 feet in three steps (three separate chambers) from the level of the Caribbean Ocean to the level of Gatun Lake, formed by the dammed Chagres River.
The huge gates in one of the locks (Dan Shelley photo)
Then early the next morning we resumed the transit, motoring for hours before getting to the Pedro Miguel lock, which lowers you about 30 feet in a single chamber to the level of Miraflores Lake. From Pedro Miguel to the next set of locks, Miraflores, is only two or three miles. In the Miraflores locks you descend the remaining 54 feet in two steps to the level of the Pacific Ocean.
This transit passed without incident, thankfully — there are quite a few ways to get into significant trouble in the locks — and was notable only for two things.
The first was a comical cluster-fuck of a raft-up the first day with a sport fishing power boat full of Venezuelans who apparently didn’t know much about handling boats but had lots of opinions, all of which they expressed emphatically in staccato-fire Spanish with lots of gesticulating. We eventually got rafted up more or less satisfactorily (I was worried about only one of my cleats) and got through the locks without ramming the walls, which we came close to doing a couple of times (the other boat was steering). We wound up going through with our little raft tied more or less in the middle of the locks behind a huge container ship.
The second was the frustration of almost four hours of delay on the second day, lots of hurry up and wait, driving in circles, wasting time and diesel fuel, with ever-changing plans, watching big ship after big ship pass us by. Eventually our number came up and we were center tied by ourselves through both the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks just ahead of a huge ship (not the same one as on the first day). Fortunately the big ship was under complete control, and its bow never got to within less than about 60 feet of our transom.
Somehow it’s Friday already and a singlehander I first met in Ecuador some years ago insisted last night over pizza at a cruisers’ get-together that I not leave port today. But changing anchorages is OK, so in a few minutes or when it stops raining for a while I’ll leave my mooring here at the Balboa Yacht Club, where I’ve been parked for the last couple of days while getting groceries and diesel fuel, and head down the causeway a few miles to the La Playita anchorage. That’s OK, it’s still a start, if a very modest one, on the path back to Mexico.
Approaching one of the locks, can’t remember which one, on a previous transit (Dan Shelley photo). Dig the two Canal workers in a little rowboat in there as well.