(Picture of Captain Mark and me in the Panama Canal)
A year ago I was reading a book written by an American historian, David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal. It is 698 pages of pure joy about how the French and, later, the Americans led the construction of the Panama Canal. And a few days ago, I actually ‘sailed’ through it. It is one of the "Seven Wonders of the Modern World and a Monument of the Millennium" (designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers).
Fun fact: the earth and rubble removed between Colon and Balboa (Panama City) was enough to bury Manhattan to a depth of 12 feet. (Source: University of Florida: https://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pcm/InterestingFacts.pdf)
It’s difficult to describe how excited everyone was in the morning of the transit in Shelter Bay Marina, Colon. The World ARC fleet had a special permission to cross the Canal in two groups. The conventional way to transit the Panama Canal for a sailing boats is going through the locks together with big cruiser and tanker ships. Our fleet had all the locks just for ourselves.
A QUICK RECAP ABOUT THE JOURNEY
We left St Lucia on the 7th of January, which was the official start of the circumnavigation. We sailed to Colombia, cruised around the San Blas Islands, took out Misty from the water for a quick check up in Colon (Panama) and soon after then transitted the Panama Canal to Panama City.
It's not even a month past and I already feel that my memories from St Lucia are fading away because of the amount of new experiences and information we need to process every single day.
People say that sailing is not about the destination, but about the journey. This must be true unless you have a schedule which you need to follow to be able to keep up with the World ARC fleet and finish the circumnavigation before April 2024.
Some other people say that sailing is not about destination nor journey, but it’s about time. I keep coming back to this subject in my blogs, but I am not sure yet what my conclusion (if any) is about time and sailing. Luckily, I still have 14 months to figure it out.
PREPARATION FOR TRANSITING THE PANAMA CANAL
The ARC team - who are organising a lot of things for the fleet - took the Panama Canal preparation really seriously.
It’s a serious business for Panama and the whole procedure must work like clockwork. The smallest mistake could have a high price not just in terms of the sailor‘s pride but also for their wallet. That’s why every single boat has to have on board a local Panamanian advisor, who works for the Canal Company.
Every crew member received line handling refresher training a day before as well as the special lines and fenders for the huge locks.
Picture below shows Captain Mark and the huge fenders we had to use during the transit.
DAY 1 OF THE TRANSIT
The whole marina was buzzing as 12 boats were about to leave in 15-minute slots to go out from the marina and anchor at a nearby spot for the advisors to board the vessels. One of the boats (Voyager II) lost one of the canal fenders so our crew had to give it back to them after it was fetched from the marina. The winds were really strong, we had to circle around buoys near the breakwater of the Panama Canal. We ended up throwing it towards them and they managed to pick it up with a hook. A little MOB (Man Over Board) practice.
The water is being moved by gravity, down and across chambers. The new locks have holding basins.
Before we entered the first lock, another funky manoeuvre had to be done, which is called nesting. See picture below
Two monohulls came alongside each catamaran in order to transit the lock. After this, the two monohulls on the sides of the cat (cat=catamaran) were just on standby, the cat was steering and using its engine to manoeuvre (Thank you Thomass from CEPA!).
In total, there were 4 nests, each with a cat in the middle and two monohulls on the sides. Four people on the four corners of the ‘nest’ had to pull in or ease the lines (ropes) depending on the flow of the water. If the lock was filling, which meant you are going up, the four lines had to be pulled in to keep the nest central. If the water in the lock was reducing, the line handlers had to ease the lines. It was super essential to do the whole thing at the same time, otherwise the 3 nesting boats would have started to turn and spin gradually or you could get stuck on one side and hang the boat from the side as the water reduces in the lock.
After getting through the Gatun Locks we arrived at the Gatun Lake where we spent the night moored up on a huge buoy with 3 other boats.
DAY 2 OF THE TRANSIT
Next day a new advisor arrived for each boat to assist the second part of the transit. We had to motor for four hours to get to the other side of the Gatun Lake and reach the Pacific Ocean via three further locks. It was not difficult to spot the unnatural elements of the environment, especially the Culebra Cut.
Apparently, the Lake is full of crocodiles but we only saw one little one.
The last lock was quite funny as it was a tourist attraction. A big crowd was watching us as we transit through it and were clapping and waving as we exited to the Pacific Ocean.
I am so grateful that I was on the boat not amongst the crowd.
In summary, the Panama Canal is amazing, a truly extraordinary achievement in engineering. The way it is being operated now is pretty heavy on actual people doing stuff by hand both onshore and on the boats. I have a feeling that it will change soon in the world of automation and AI. The marine industry has always been late on picking up innovation compared with other transport modes but I guess, it is inevitable to find safer, cheaper and greener ways to help ships get from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The UK has a canal system which spreads across the whole country. One can actually get from Bristol to Yorkshire just by using the lock system. Maybe it could be an interesting challenge for my company, TRL.
CLOSING
Panama City was the last urban environment during our voyage. We did a lot of provisioning, partying at the rooftop bars and shopping for gadgets and clothes.
I will miss it but the beautiful Galapagos Islands and French Polynesia are waiting for us.
A time-laps of our crossing from Captain Mark:
And another video about the Panama Canal crossing with some drone footage.
Thank you Chris from Mistral!
Love your blog B … looking forward to reading more!