PASSING THROUGH THE PANAMÁ CANAL
Las Brisas de Amador Anchorage, Panamá City, Panamá, Friday, 09 October 2009

(Photos later.)

Feeling bummed out about how long the engine repairs were taking, we had a real pepper-upper when we were invited to crew with another boat through the Panama Canal. You can hire local line-handlers as well as the necessary long ropes and car tires cum fenders. Or you can get other cruisers and/or friends to lend a hand. So far I have only heard of cruisers acting as line-handlers; I have never heard of them acting as fenders, but one never knows, does one? In return the cruiser-linehandlers get an interesting one or two-day trip. Normally the skipper provides the food, drinks and accommodation and the return taxi, in this case from Colón on the Atlantic side of the Canal to Balboa on the Pacific. The Canal is only 50 miles (80 kilometers) long and there is a fast new motorway between Panamá City and Colón so the return taxi trip takes only about 90 minutes.

Each vessel requires four deck crewpersons – linehandlers - to keep the vessel in the middle of the lock going up or down. Each lock is about 75 feet deep, but you drop only 40 feet so there is plenty of depth left. There are six locks: three up and three down to bring one over the continental divide. The total lift, if you have not been doing your sums, is about 135 feet to Lake Gatun in the middle of the Isthmus of Panamá and back down. There is some difference in sea levels between the Atlantic and Pacific but nothing significant.

The trip started on 07 October when we were picked up from our boat at shortly before 0600 by Iain, the South African-born skipper of a huge catamaran called “Impromptu” He and his South African wife Jane and their two-year-old son Dillon live aboard her. The sister catamaran is called “Infinity” and is the floating home of the English couple, Lea and Mark. Both boats are owned by chartering company; Iain, Jane, Mark and Lea are the professional crew. They had come through the Panamá Canal half a year ago with the intention of running charters to the Las Perlas Islands. But this plan has not panned out and the owner decided to move the boats to Belize (previously known ad British Honduras) on the Caribbean side in order to run week-long diving charters in combination with a diving school that the owner has also purchased. The original passage was delayed however by the hurricane season now nearing its end and by the fact that Infinity had been struck by lightening in our anchorage some six weeks ago and has been waiting for insurance adjusters, electronic repairmen, and the like.

Finally the day arrived. We were to make the passage ‘nested up”, i.e., tied parallel to each other. Going through in the same run was the beautiful Herreshoff ketch, Erica, belonging to Mark and his family. Mark is a shipwright, so you can imagine how beautifully his classic boat is kept up. His wife and two daughters are up near Houston Texas; the teenage daughter has had enough of cruising life and wants to be in high school. Since the kids have already begun classes, Mark is moving Erica up there on his own. He is moving from California to Texas because the cost of a marina some thirty miles from Houston is much, much cheaper than in California. He has rented a condo adjacent to the slip for his boat, for example, for only a fraction of what the slip alone would have cost in San Diego, Long Beach or San Francisco. (This is the second cruiser I have heard of here that is moving from the West Coast to Texas for economic reasons; the skipper of “Charlie” says he will be paying $166 monthly for a live-aboard slip near Houston too. The same slip wold have cost him well over $1,000 in San Diego. There are apparetntly lots of empty slips but so far no concessions on prices.) Mark will voyage first to Cartagena in Columbia and then set off for Texas in November when the hurricane has ended and hopefully before the NE Tradewinds work against him. He is departing fom Cartagena because the angle to the wind is better. (He already has crew for the Colon-Cartegena run but is still trying to line crew up for the passage to Texas. If you are interested, let me know and I will pass it on. Mark is a very personable guy, his vessel looks strong and seaworthy and he is a seasoned offshore skipper.)

Kathy as it turned out crewed aboard Impromptu with Iain and Jane while I was aboard Infinity with Mark and Lea. We were only split up for the motoring between locks and for the down-locking on the Atlantic side. Otherwise, the boats rafted up at night halfway across. Being aboard a large catamaran is a real treat. The amount of space is incredible! We had our own ‘stateroom’ with a private head/shower.

We were told by Canal Traffic Control to meet the “adviser” just below the entrance lighthouse at the Balboa (Pacific) end at 0830. All three boats were there in plenty of time waiting for the three Advisers who came out to us on a pilot boat. The Adviser’s job of course is to help you through the procedure and to maintain contact with Traffic Control. On board the big ships, a “pilot” actually takes command of the ship. But with yachts, he is supposed only to advise, although of course, if there are serious problems, he can force you to take certain steps or have you grounded. The passage itself costs approximately $700 ( boat under fifty feet), but you also have to make a returnable deposit of $900; if you screw up it can really cost you some money. If you cannot provide them yourself, you also have to rent lines and fenders from a private supplier who also helps you with the paperwork and arranges for return transport for crewmen, equipment pickup at the end of the passage, etc.

With us on board Infinity was Elvir McMillan, a Venezuelan-born tugboat engineer, who advises yachts as a second job. His grandfather was Scottish; his grandmother German; they met in Chile. Elvir had served in the US Navy and his English is perfect; he also speaks pretty good German too. He was a wealth of information about the Canal and about Panamá in general.

Once aboard, the three vessels started north towards Miraflores (double) Lock. Canal Traffic Control plans the locking through on a tight time schedule, so we had a deadline to meet. Just outside Miraflores Lock, we rafted up with Inpromptu and motored in tandem into the now-open gates. Rafted up, we only needed four linehandlers. Erica followed us in. As we came inside the gates, Canal linehandlers high above us on the wall threw us a light line with a monkey-fist on the end. “Don’t try to catch it” Mark said. “You might get beaned.” I was tending the portside aft line. The first throw missed our boat altogether and landed in the water astern. The second bounced off the arch over the cockpit and wrapped itself around my neck. Off to a good start! I disentangled myself, tied the light line with a bowline to the loop on the end of our mooring line and fed out the line while it was hauled up. As we motored forward the upper line-handlers walked us forward until the Adviser told them which bollard to tie us to. Once the gates closed behind Erica astern of us, the water began to boil up under us and we began to rise. This water all comes from the Chagras River via Lake Gatun and no pumps are involved. It is all done by gravity. The gates are buoyant so that there is very little pressure needed to open and close them provided of course that the water levels on either side are the same.

(Kathy had posted the web address of the webcam on her Facebook page (www.pancanal.com) and by the time we had moored for the night, many had taken a look and even posted a picture of us on Facebook.)

The linehandling itself was not that difficult for old salts like us. The first up-lock (Miraflores) was perhaps the most difficult because the currents were the strongest, and because we had to get the hang of line-tending. Each lock took only a few minutes, but we had to keep a proper tension on the line to that the currents did not drive the rafted-up cat’s against the rough stone walls. Once the forward gates opened we motored through in tandem for the short distance until we came to Pedro Miquel Locks, a set of two locks. After that you motor through the long dug canal and through the infamous Culebra Cut, which essentially defeated the French engineering because of its continuous mudslides. There was constant tug and ship traffic to contend with, of course. The Panamá Canal is a busy place even now when the worldwide economic recession has reduced traffic. But traffic was matter for the skippers and the Advisers. Havihg reached the level of Lake Gatun, and with the boats now separated, we could take it easy and enjoy the days outing. We didn’t even have to deal with the heavy tropical squall that overtook us and gave the helmsmen a good soaking.

Since we were not going to be able to make the whole passage to the Atlantic side in one day, we were told to take up a buoy on Lake Gatun near the down-locks. All three boats arrived safely and, defying the alligators or crocodiles that reportedly inhabit the lake, some of us jumped in for a fresh-water swim followed by a pleasant supper aboard. Iain was all for “partying down” but after a long day in the hot sun, a delicious spaghetti dinner and quite a bit of wine, it was not long after dark when quiet fell over the lake, and the crew members began to creep away to their berths.

I was awakened before dawn by the howler monkeys on shore and was able to enjoy the peaceful, cool dawn on the lake. Around 0830 again the same Advisors showed up again. This time it was decided that we would raft up with Erica; Impromptu would ‘side-tie’ and do the down-locks separately. Tied to Infinity’s port side, Mark on Erica was told to keep his engine running in neutral and to keep his helm admidships. With Lea at the helm of Infinity again, we motored carefully into the first of the three directly-adjoining locks. The down-locking was far less taxing for both the linehandlers and the skippers since the water just falls gently and there are no currents. We were however in the same lock with a large freighter. Its shoreside linehandling was done by the famous stainless-steel-clad electric-locomotives. It was a little intimidating to see this huge vessel approaching us from behind, I have to admit. At sea we do everything we can to give them a wide, wide berth. We saw a huge container ship passing like a wall upwards in the parallel lock as we descended.

At 1130 on the second day, we passed out of the last lock, a few minutes later we untied Erica and motored forward until we came to the “flats” at the Colon end where Elvir, our Adviser and his colleagues were picked off our boats one at a time by a pilot boat and we waved them a friendly goodbye. We continued on uneventfully towards Shelter Bay Marina where the boats had reserved slips and arranged for the taxi to pick us up for the return journey. Given the size of these catamarans, I cannot imagine what the docking fees must have been. I do know that if you anchor outside the marina and only dinghy-dock there, you only pay $2 per day which is very civil compared to the $5 or more per day we have to pay at Balboa. And, it should be noted, you get really nice facilities at Shelter Bay (lovely showers, a swimming pool, a nice bar, etc.), whereas no facilities are offered whatsoever at Amador.

Although we were invited to stay aboard for the night and use the facilities, we had to visit the Port Captain back in Balboa for an extension of our Cruising Permit the next day. Several of the line-handling cruisers also had commitments for Friday and returned with us. I think the skippers paid about $100 for the van to carry the lines and fenders and seven crewmen back to Balboa. Those staying overnight would ride back on the regular busses a day or so later.

The van driver took us on a route through dense jungle and stopped at the Trail of the Crosses (Camino del Cruces), which is the original mule trail that was used by the Spaniards starting in the 17th Century for trans-shipping Peruvian and Philippine gold from the Pacific to the Atlantic for on-shipping to Spain; the so-called Manila Fleets. It is a rough cobblestone trail about a meter or so wide that winds up and around the hills, appearing and disappearing rapidly into the jungle from where we stopped. In 1671, Captain Morgan and his band of pirates or privateers, pushed through overland to Panamá Viejo to sack and destroy Panamá City. It is still a ruin today. With 275 mules and 600 prisoners they marched overland on this trail carrying off a major portion of that year’s shipment. English and Dutch pirates were a constant threat as long as the Spanish moved gold and fortifications were put up all along the Spanish Main and the cities were moved farther inland to give more protection.

All in all, it was fun two days and a welcome break from proofreading or engine repairs. We extend special thanks to Mark and Lea, Iain and Jane for the invitation to join them. We enjoyed meeting them and spending time with the other crewmembers.

Back in the old trot, today has proven mixed. My visit to the Capitanía de Puerto this morning was successful in getting us a one-month extension to our Cruising Permit after which we shall likely Zarpe for Costa Rica. I was also able to pick up the repaired alternator for re-installation in the engine room. But the carpentero who was supposed to manufacture the new lightboards and instrument panel and have them ready last Saturday, had really not even started. So, we now have a little time in hand. While we were away, Heinz, an Austrian marine electrician, went over our engine-room wiring, and will make us a suggestion about how we can modernise the whole set up and thus make the whole thing more reliable. Our only remaining laptop went on the fritz this morning and I had to go shopping for a new power pack. Oh well! You win a few; you loose a few; some get rained out.