Canal Transit Prep

The Transit

The whole canal transit is about 45 miles and should take 10 to 12 hours.   We will start our day around 4AM.  The locks will take us up about 85 feet above sea-level to Gatún Lake.  The transit is generally northwest.  You would think we should have gone east!

Our marina is about 7 miles from the Mireflores locks.  These are the first two locks to raise the boat.  About 1.5 miles after Mireflores is the Pedro Miguel lock which will finish raising us to lake-level. We expect to be behind a huge ship in the locks. We may be tied up with one or two other small boats, or we might be solo.

We will go just about 30 miles on Gatún Lake to the three Gatún locks near Colón.  The canal route is an active and regulated shipping route. There can be fines if you deviate from your plan, or if you have issues and maybe need a tow.

The three Gatún locks will drop us 85 feet to get to sea-level in the Caribbean! We then go about 7 miles to our slip in Shelter Bay marina.

Here is a link that shows how the locks work: https://youtu.be/91m2WHjJdOo

There are web cams along the canal route. You might just be able to see us in the canal as we progress through the locks. If the cameras are working…

https://multimedia.panama-canal.com/

The Crew

It’s just going to be the two of us. Oh, and five other hired hands. Dave is the boat driver. Mary is the galley goddess. We will have a canal advisor who tells Dave how to drive the boat through the locks and lake. We will also have four line handlers on the boat who will be working lines with four other line handlers on the canal walls. They all keep the boat in the middle of the locks when we raise and lower.

Mary has the big job. She’s going to keep the crew, all seven of us, fed and hydrated. She will be the most popular (and busiest) person on board. And she has to take pictures to memorialize our adventure.

Provisions and Equipment

We are using an agent to coordinate our adventure. He did our paperwork and scheduling with the Panamá Canal Authority. He also got us our line handlers and equipment. We are renting eight huge buoy fenders and four 75-foot lines for our line handling. Having an agent makes this so much easier.

We provisioned for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and lots of beverages for the transit, and for the upcoming few weeks. Shopping will be more challenging when we leave Panamá City behind. Panamá is a lot more rural on the Caribbean side.

Sunday morning, we woke up to find our freezer turned off. Shit! All of our newly frozen food stocks lost! It turned out our freezer was still working – just the temperature display had mysteriously gone dark. Whew. We don’t need these kinds of surprises two days before our crossing. Let’s hope it was just a glitch.

The forecast is for light winds and 30% chance of rain. That’s a good forecast. And any sea creatures attached to our hull better enjoy their remaining moments. We are going to be in fresh water. Prepare to die, barnacles!