Passage through the Panama Canal
This is it! Today the 9th of April 2019 we are crossing the Panama Canal. A canal sooooo many people died to dig. A canal that shortcuts sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. It's legendary and we will do it 😊
Two times a set of three locks. The first one, Gatun lock, will get us up in the Gatun lake. We'll cross that lake for about 7 hours and the Miraflores lock will take us down to the Pacific Ocean.
Lines are prepared, tires are in place and solarpanels protected.
So at 17:15 the pilot arrives (1 hour) too late. He stumps with his dirty shoes everywhere and he's in a real hurry. We have to be at the first lock in 20'! The stress begins.
Geoff asks him politely to take of his shoes, we start the engine, pick up a very dirty anchor and we're off.
I shake off my need to have everything spotless and start to enjoy the "ritual" 😳😁
Katy and Andy handle the four girls professionally well!
The pilot is very nice and helpful.
We go under the bridge we so many times when crossing on the Shelter Bay Marina minibus, but this time it's us the ship is waiting for 😋
In the mean time, my two girls have a feel for the excitement of mum and dad and behave themselves like they had 10 balls of icecream!
The first locks are just there. Now we have to wait for our big cargo ship to enter. We have to pair up with two other boats.
It's so funny because one of the other boats is of the girls friends. They have been playing together for the last 10 days. So everybody's happy!
We get ready to catch the monkeyballs and attach our lines to it.
It's quite hard to each time pull the ropes in, and make sure the three boats stay nicely in the middle, as the water rises very very fast!
Locked in and waiting for the water to rise...
Weird to say goodbye to the Atlantic at night ...
Second lock: further and further away and higher ...
Through the last lock into the Gatun lake.
My mum managed to follow us in all suspense, but off course the view off the webcams wasn't great.
We were all very happy to get a good night sleep in the lake and were supposed to leave at 7 am.
Luckily the new pilot arrived only around 9, so we had time to get breakfast and lots of coffee. Ready for the second half!
It's a 7 hour trip to cross the lake to the Pacific side. It's beautiful! Only we had abnormal hot weather (48°C). And absolutely no wind (0.0 knots!) So with a lake full of gators, 10 people onboard and limited water supply it's a bit hard. However our spirits remain high!
Crossing some really big ships like ... every 3 minutes!
And while some are looking for the only bit of shade, others are enjoying what appears to be the biggest ship crossing the Panama Canal.
And then last minute instructions before we arrive at the Miraflores locks.
A quick bite. The captain is not allowed to leave his steering wheel, it's been 8 hours until that time...
Is this the one? That's BIG !
Geoff is very concentrated and ready to push the others, luckily we have a good set of engines!
These are the trains that pull the cargo ships in the locks. Quite impressive engineering around here!!!
Our linehandlers are very nice and funny 😀
We are almost set and the big one is being pulled in. Will there be enough place?
Ah the smell of the Pacific arrives at our noses. It does smell differently!
He's coming really close ...
And then the trains stop ...
And then you wait for the water to go down. This time it's not so difficult to hold the lines. You just shouldn't forget to let go from time to time (we didn't😌)!
Lines off and we advance to the 5th lock (the second one on the Pacific side)...
Apparently this is the home of about hundreds of Pelicans. They give a very nice show while waiting for the big ship to advance...
The girls also give a show of ballet. Hmmm we'll have to work on that 😳
Ah the grandparents are watching us from the mast behind this building, so we start waving!!!
Oe oe, this is the last step and the biggest drop. We're feeling wet and tired but I guess you can't see it on our faces!
The Canal Ministery came to visit and admire our passage 😜
10 minutes later we're touching the Pacific water for the first time!!!
This is how it showed on the webcam:
And this is the breeze we were waiting for all day:
After one hour, we arrive at la Playita, drop off our very nice pilot, drop anchor and even before a beer ... we all take a shower!
Lines are prepared, tires are in place and solarpanels protected.
So at 17:15 the pilot arrives (1 hour) too late. He stumps with his dirty shoes everywhere and he's in a real hurry. We have to be at the first lock in 20'! The stress begins.Geoff asks him politely to take of his shoes, we start the engine, pick up a very dirty anchor and we're off.
I shake off my need to have everything spotless and start to enjoy the "ritual" 😳😁
First the two others pair up...
And then it's our turn.
It's a 7 hour trip to cross the lake to the Pacific side. It's beautiful! Only we had abnormal hot weather (48°C). And absolutely no wind (0.0 knots!) So with a lake full of gators, 10 people onboard and limited water supply it's a bit hard. However our spirits remain high!
We are attached again and waiting for our big cargo boat to join us in the locks.
Ah no, finally they want us to go in front of that one. So we have to pass ( the three boats rafted) besides it. The TUG boat starts pushing it aside and we get quite close to the rocks, but pass nicely. OEF!
Louise is overheating 😅
That's really tight!
No turning back now, are we ready for 32 days of sailing to the Marquises?
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