Transiting the Panama Canal (with a bunch of nudists)

The goal of a Canal transit is to pass under the Bridge of the Americas in one piece.

The buzz around Shelter Bay Marina is all about going through the Canal. The majority of the boats in the marina are either preparing for or waiting for their transit date. You hear lots of horror stories about other boats going through, which creates a certain level of tension amongst all the sailors. Another concern (Meryl's),  was menu planning as it was rumored if an advisor didn't like your meals he could call and have another delivered at your expense. So most crews were preparing good and plentiful food for six people to last the entire transit.   Of course everyone had various suggestions on how to make a successful Canal transit.  Some of it is helpful, some not so.

On Tuesday our agent, Eric Galvez, dropped off four 100 ft. ¾” lines and 8 large teardrop fenders for use during the transit. We got the fenders strategically placed around the boat and the lines stacked on the foredeck. Of all the advice we got the best was from our friend Andrew on Eye Candy:  “Walter, just relax. It will be OK.”

On March 12th (our son Brad’s birthday) we left the marina around 12:30 pm with Annie, Trig, and Gabriel, a 22-year-old line handler we hired through our agent. We motored about five miles to an anchorage called The Flats, located just before the entrance to the Canal. We got there early in case the schedule changed (we we supposed to go through at 5:30 pm) and we could go through ahead of time. Unfortunately, no such luck.

If you could blow this photo up you would understand our consternation about going through the Canal with this boat.

There was only one other sailboat in the area, a funky older catamaran that we will call The Other Boat (TOB) with an older blonde, very naked man walking the foredeck. I did my little prayer of “Please God don’t let that be the boat we’re going through with.”  We anchored in very windy conditions and waited. No other sailboats came, raising my apprehension.

Our Adviser Guillermo (on the left) arrives to assist Flying Cloud through the Canal.

Our Adviser (required by the Canal to assist us in the locking process, kind of like a ship’s pilot) finally arrived at about 6:15. His name was Guillermo. All the Advisers have normal full time jobs and do advising on their days off. He normally worked as a security guy patrolling the Canal by boat, so he knew the Canal like the back of his hand.

Guillermo was calm, cool, and collected, which is way more than I was at that time.

Guillermo gave the command to “up anchor” and (unfortunately) raft up with TOB, a German catamaran with a group of German/Austrian nudists on board (they were clothed all the time through the Canal, thank God!). I had to laugh when Meryl didn't get the spring line quite right and was admonished by a woman with a deep German accent saying "Don't you speak English?"

We entered the first Gatun Lock behind the container ship, Ice Glacier.

We had the Senior Adviser so I had to “steer” the raft. It was now very dark, but as we approached the locks things lit up like Friday night football. The locks are 1000 ft. long and 110 ft. wide, but it seems much narrower when you are rafted to a wide catamaran. We slowly entered the Gatun Locks, a series of three connected locks, that would raise us 85 ft. to the level of Gatun Lake.

Having a professional line handler like Gabriel is worth every penny of the $50/day fee.

Gabriel was great organizing the two large 125 ft. blue lines and getting the fenders adjusted just right. The Adviser gave me commands like reverse, forward, slow forward, neutral and relay the same over to TOB, which also had an Adviser on board. Unfortunately the captain of TOB, seemed more interested in talking with his crew of two couples than really paying attention. It was like party central on that boat, which made things more tense for me.  We followed a huge ship into the locks, which was also a little intimidating. The good thing is our Adviser was extremely competent and gave us excellent instructions during the transit.

This is a good shot showing the length and height of the lines going to the top of the lock. Tending these lines in synch with the other boat is crucial.

As we got close the line handlers high up on the lock threw a weighted ball (called a monkey fist) attached to a lightweight line to our foredeck. We had air mattresses covering all the solar panels since the monkey fist would easily crack them with a direct hit. Gabby (Gabriel) expertly caught the messenger lines and tied them to our big blue lines with a quick bowline. Trig took one back to the aft cleat and Gabby ran a blue line to the front cleat. The line handlers then pulled the heavy blue lines up to the top of the locks and put them over huge yellow bollards. TOB was very slow handling their lines causing our boat to drift closer to the wall. Finally with everything under control (and our Adviser constantly reminding the other skipper to do things), the massive steel doors closed behind us and water began swirling (sometimes with a lot for force) into the locks. Trig and Gabby would slowly pull our lines in as Flying Cloud rose with the torrent of water entering the locks (gravity feed from Lake Gatun 85 ft. above us). The main force of the water flowing in was on TOB’s side of the lock meaning they had to tend their lines very carefully to keep us off the lock wall. Well, one can only wish.

It took about 15 minutes to rise to the top of the first lock. Tryg and Gabby then pulled the big blue lines back on deck and until they just had the thin messenger line, and we slowly motored forward while the lock keeper guys walked the lines forward so we could enter the next lock. Every once in awhile Gabby or Tryg would have to “flip” the line to get it over some obstacles along the lock wall.

We repeated this procedure twice more, all the time watching the party atmosphere on the nudist boat. It was very disconcerting to have them not paying attention. At one point I heard a lot of laughter and looked over to the foredeck of TOB to see two guys pulling down the shorts of one of the women to get some GoPro footage of her bare bum. OMG. Concentrate, Walter.

Gabriel knew just how to use our heavy blue lines to "bridle" us to the buoy for our overnight stay on Lake Gatun.

We then motored out of the third lock, untied from TOB, and motored about 50 minutes in the pitch black to a large orange mooring buoy where we tied up for the night. A boat came after about an hour to pick up the Adviser, but Gabby slept in the sea berth. It had been a long, tedious day and we were all exhausted. What was happening on TOB, tied to another mooring ball, is best left to one’s prurient imagination.

We had some 600 ft container ships sharing the anchorage with us that night.

The next morning we got up at 6:00 am since a new Adviser was due at 6:30, but he didn’t show up until about 8:15 am. Then we motored for about three hours, racing at 6.5 knots trying to get as far ahead of TOB as we could. Our Adviser was hoping we could raft to a tour boat that was about to go through the 2nd set of locks, at the Pedro Miguel.

They are continually dredging the Canal to maintain the 59 ft. depth throughout the passage.

The Titan Crane, one of the world's largest floating cranes, was actually built in Hitler's Germany and claimed as war booty by the Americans. It came to the Panama Canal in 1999 from Long Beach, CA.

It is a little disconcerting to being sharing a relatively narrow canal with 600 ft. container ships going 16 to 22 knots.

The passage through the Culebra (Gaillard) Cut is very narrow so tugs are used to keep the ships on course.

Unfortunately that didn’t work out so about 1 ½ hours later TOB comes slowly motoring up and we have to raft up with them again. The next part got kind of screwed up as we almost went in the left hand lock, but then they told us to go back out. We then motored around with strong 20-knot gust hitting us making maneuvering very difficult. Finally about another hour wait we entered the right hand lock in front of another huge ship. Same routine, but this time going down. For Trig and Gabby it was a little more tense since any kink in the outgoing line would have us hanging from the lock walls, but they both did a great job of paying attention and paying out the lines at the right speed.

A webcam photo supplied by Meryl's cousin, Lisa Van Kampen, shows us entering the last set of locks at the Miraflores Locks.

These arrows denote the status of the lock: Straight Up = not ready; Angled down = moor to that approach wall; and 90 degrees right or left = enter the right or left lock.

Here the line handler is getting ready to let go of the blue mooring line and walk it along the walls to the next lock.

Our friends Annie and Tryg were a tremendous help in getting us through the locks safely. I think they are both breathing a sigh of relief.

When you turn around and see the Sunbelt Spirit looming, it puts the fear of God in you. Just last week a ship this size couldn't stop and crushed the lock gate in the Kiel Canal in Germany.

This view is a welcome sight to any Captain as he gazes out over the final lock at Miraflores and sees the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

Tryg and Meryl had a good system for locking down where Meryl would untangle the line for Tryg, who would slowly feed it out the fairlead as the boat descended in the lock.

The Visitor's Center at the Miraflores Lock is always packed with tourists watching the antics below. If they only knew how nervous those skippers were at the time.

On the Pacific side of the Miraflores Locks there are two sets of lock doors to counteract the extremely high tides of the Pacific Ocean.

We stayed rafted and this time had to tie to a buoy for over an hour while waiting for a inbound ship to clear the lock. This time we went into the lock (the Miraflores) first with the huge ship entering after us. Very intimidating to turn around and see this massive ship towering over us. Locking down was a little more difficult since you have to smoothly pay your lines out and there is a lot of force on the boat from the water swirling around. The doors opened (the Miraflores Locks have two gates as an emergency against the high tides of the Pacific) and we walked our lines into the final lock. This last lock is the toughest since you have about a 3 – 4 knot current from behind and the boat has to be held tight. Gabby and Trig did a great job, but it was still party time on TOB. Finally we got out and joyfully untied from TOB (hoping this was the last time I would ever see them) and we motored ahead to drop of the Adviser and a little further on we dropped off Gabby and the lines and buoys we had rented.

We then motored about 30 minutes to an anchorage called La Playita. We saw our friends there and went to anchor but with a side current pushing against an opposing 20-knot wind it was tough to get the right position in the very crowded anchorage. A nearby cat indicated we were too close to him so we pulled our anchor up and got ready to come around for a 2nd try when, who but TOB, motors right past us and anchors in the exact spot we were headed to. It’s the only time I lost my cool and screamed at them. It had been a very tense two days for me with a lot at risk and these idiots where in the way all they way through the locks. I somehow in my mind knew they were going to do something like that so I vented my anger. We then found another place, got anchored, and had a quantity of beers.

The intrepid Captain and crew of Flying Cloud relieved to check this one off the bucket list.

A very long two days and we’re really glad it’s over. When I went to start our outboard this morning to take Annie and Trig to a hotel, I found the motor was frozen. I'm sure it's the same issue that I thought we had fixed last August so now we have to deal with that on top of getting ready for the Galapagos. Luckily we had a little 2 hp. Yamaha squirreled away in the depths of the boat and like a champ it started on the first pull.

We’ll chill out tomorrow and then hit the ground running on Monday. As soon as we have all the shopping, motor repair, etc. done we’ll head out to the Los Perlas islands off the coast of Panama and wait for a weather window to the Galapagos. Trig is flying home and then meeting us in the Galapagos for the long 3 week passage to the Marquesas. It will be great to have him along for company on the long 3 to 4 week passage.