Entre Nous was in the first WARC group to transit through the canal. They gave us an evening start which was pleasant compared with the other option of 4 am. We fuelled up then went to anchor while we waited for our assistant to board. The Canal Authorities provide an assistant no charge if you are under 70 feet or, if over, a pilot who costs around 3K US! Lucky we are 64 feet. They did send a guy over to measure, which was amusing – he is the official measurer to check people are not underestimating their length (huge jump up in price) but his tape measure was not long enough and he had to do it in two goes then add the two up! Our assistant was Edwin, and very friendly and helpful. We had to raft up with another cat on one side and a mono on the other which was tricky in quite a bit of wind and current from the lock in front emptying. The assistant makes sure everything happens on time and the lines from the outer boats to the lock top are correct. We shared our lock with a large freighter as well. It was all very interesting. Brian and Lyn from “Aerial” came to get the experience for when they transit and to help with lines. We had to have 4 line handlers in addition to the captain. We met them 3 years ago in Turkiye.
Approaching the first lock
Waiting for Algeria to raft up on our other side
Lock gates
Our first advisor arriving
Cruise ship leaving to enter the Atlantic
Algeria rafted up
Throwing the lines with the monkey fists on for securing to the main canal lines. Only the outside two boats in the raft had to do this.
There are three locks going up from the Atlantic to the lake in the middle and 3 going down to the Pacific. We arrived at the lake around 6pm and our assistant got picked up. We tied up to a big buoy for the night. Shaunagh made a great spaghetti bolognaise and there were more than a few wines drank in celebration. We all unrated for the night.
On our buoy on the lake just on dusk
There is quite a bit of current when the water comes in or goes out.
A cargo of 4000 cars.
A spectator stand on the Pacific side.
Rafted to a very noisy excursion ferry for the Pacific locks.
We never knew Panama was this big. The biggest building is Donald Trumps. You can’t see it from this angle.
It’s very jungly. All manmade to supply the lock water. Rain fed only.
The lake is actually man made to supply water to the system and is impressively big with thick tropical jungle right down to the water. There are freshwater crocodiles – so not swimming!
At about 7am we took on board two different assistants. One was the big boss and the other a trainee. They also were great and good company as well. These assistants are all employees of the Panama Canal authority in different capacities and get asked to do these positions as paid but voluntarily. On the return trip we rafted up to two excursion ferries and had a huge car transport ship behind us. It all went very smoothly even though the last lock had a huge current that we had to push through to get out! Good to have big engines. We dropped the assistants off to their pick up boat and headed into our marina at La Playita. Brian and Lyn ubered back to Shelter Bay that evening. We are now in our home ocean
Bit squeezy!
The little trains are called mules and secure the lines for the larger vessels.
First sight of Panama City
We’ve got a place to fly our boxing roo.