|
|
|
What a thrill it was to transit the Panamá Canal! It was undoubtedly one of the highlights of our trip. We spent some time in Balboa, on the Pacific side, getting everything ready for the transit, and then spent some time in Colón, touring some inland Indian villages. Stay tunes for many pictures of this portion of our trip. Below, Daisy and Ed are transiting the Gatún Locks, sharing the final locking maneuvers with a large freighter, CASSIOPEA. When the lock doors open, we will have sailed into the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean in a few hours.
The transit of the Panamá Canal includes navigating through the beautiful man-made Gatún Lake. See below.
PANAMÁ CANAL (Part 1, where Daisy and Ed were crew aboard the trawler ANNIE, to get some practice before the real event!) April 3, 2003 We had to get a lancha to pick us up at 5am at our mooring (the lanchas from BYC run 24-hours a day), arranged for a taxi at 5:15am to make the short trip to arrive at Flamingo Marina at 5:30am, as requested, and then WAIT until 7:30am at Flamingo before we got underway! We contacted Canal Control at the agreed-to Canal buoy, and the advisor was delivered on time aboard ANNIE for the transit. We went right past SIESTA, moored off the Balboa Yacht Club, at 7:45am, as we motored towards the locks from Flamingo.
We must have taken over 100 pictures, in between our line handling jobs aboard the trawler ANNIE. We transited the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks with the twin ANNIE and ALYSSA tugs rafted together, and ANNIE tied to a big tug who was tied to a tug. We had been told that "locking up" is far trickier than locking down" and now we KNOW this is true! When you "lock up", you usually have a big ship AHEAD OF YOU. Why is it trickier? First, the turbulence of the water, which boils from under us to fill the chamber, creates significant stresses on all the lines. Not a problem if you have good lines (most people rent all four of them for $20-25 a piece) and good cleating techniques. (We have been told that closed cleats are required, although we cannot confirm this.) It gets even more exciting when the ship's stern, positioned merely 10 feet ahead of you starts turning its prop to move ahead to the next lock. It's like running the rapids. In contrast, when downlocking, there is no turbulence. The lock just drains like a bathtub. And the ship that shares the lock with you is positioned BEHIND you in the lock, so the prop wash is not a factor, although the bow of the ship so close to one's stern makes for an imposing picture as one looks back and up!
We were on the last lock at Gatun, the one that opens into the salty Caribbean, feeling really excited about the experience, and confident given the simplicity of the "locking down" process to descent to the Caribbean level, when we had what could have been a serious accident. As background: for every set of locks, we would get instructions from the Canal Authority, through the advisor, as to how we would transit: nested, center-chamber, tied to a tug, etc. We got this info fairly late in the game each time, and several times the authorities changed their mind back and forth, which made it exciting. You have to remain flexible, and adapt to the conditions. We were told by Craig Owings, the commodore of the Pedro Miguel Yacht Club, that center chamber by ourselves, or tied to a tug whose tied to one wall only, was the best way to "uplock", whereas downlocking could be done in almost any fashion without much risk of something going wrong. Our advisor, George, was a very good one, and he provided good input to Don, the owner and captain of ANNIE. He has a special UHF frequency radio that allows him to communicate with Canal Control and other yachties' advisors. Every small boat must have an advisor on board. For Gatun, our last locks to complete the transit, ANNIE AND ALYSSA, 34' twin tugs, were asked to nest, center-chamber at the front of the lock. No problema. Slow and easy. The 55' Hatteras trawler, PLAYPEN, was to be tied to a tug who came slowly behind us and tied to a wall aft of us. Lastly, a big ship would come into the rear of the lock, making a tight fit lengthwise. When PLAYPEN attempted to tie to the tug, they did not quickly hand the stern line to the tug after they did the bowline. The stern started slowly separating from the tug. The problem could have been solved easily if promptly attended to. However, Fred became overconfident and took his time. He did not realize at the time that, as the large ship was slowly pulled into the lock by the "mules", electric locomotives on rails, it displaces a lot of water forward of it. Although there is no visible turbulence in this case, there is a significant forward current of water created. The displaced water hits the gates, and comes back out of the lock under our boats and the big ship. If you fall in the water, you run the risk of doing the same. We recommend wearing your lifejackets during the transit. All Canal employees did. Anyway, PLAYPEN wasted time attempting to turn the stern back into the tug with its twin engines, confident that it could be easily done. Slowly but surely, PLAYPEN's stern continued to move out, to the point that PLAYPEN got to be perpendicular to the lock side walls, with only its bow line to the tug, which was tied to the wall behind us. As the ship continued on its path into the lock, the current continued and it pushed PLAYPEN's stern around slowly but firmly and inevitably towards our stern. We could not move out of the way, since the locks were right in front of us. PLAYPEN's swing was stopped when its stern hit the fancy plastic dinghy on ANNIE's davits. A boat as large as PLAYPEN has enough mass to cause serious damage, even at slow speed. Luckily, we think there was no structural damage to the dinghy and the davits, but it was not a pretty picture. PLAYPEN was pulled back to the tug by its bow line, with its stern pointing to the front of the lock and the ship, and in this way, was towed out of the lock and into open water, before it was let go and turned around. The locks are only 100' wide! No matter what do under your control, there is always the other guy... After having done this dry run, we highly recommend it highly to anybody planning to cross the Canal. It gives you an excellent perspective. Yachties provide this opportunity to each other for free, faced with the option of hiring experienced line-handlers for $55/each per the quote we got. We also recommend the little book on how to transit the Panama Canal, A Captain's Guide to Transiting the Panama Canal in a Small Vessel, which we picked up in the States. They sell it at the Balboa Yacht Club and is well-worth the price. It was mentioned in the bibliography for our Southbounder's Cruising Notes. After having our "practice" crossing, we feel very confident about our transit on Friday. You can read all you want to, but there is nothing like experiencing the process to really understand what needs to be done, and how everything works in sequence, with all its variations. Now, we think it will be a fun experience that we are looking forward to. But we will be extra careful and focused on what is going on at all times. Our line handlers, who have never done this before, will be briefed tonight about how the whole process works. It even helps to find your favorite "how to do knots" book and review the right way to use a cleat, to prevent slipping and yet allow a fast untie. We do not mean to frighten anybody, just help you prepare to have a safe and enjoyable experience. A good agent, bonded with the Canal Authority, runs around $500, we are told. If you have several boats together, ANNIE told us you can negotiate a deal around $300 or so. Fancy sport fishermen boats with captains, and fancy yachts, always use an expensive agent. We think one can do the work oneself, but it takes some time and work. Enrique Plummer was recommended to us for checking into Panama and for arranging the transit, and we used him. He is far cheaper at $125 per boat, and $25 for check-in into Panama. We think he is worth every penny, even for us who speak fluent Spanish. He is a jack of all trades, who can help you in many was once you get here: parts, services, provisioning, renting lines and huge fenders, hiring experienced line handlers, medical care, etc. He is not bonded with the Canal Authority. We think this means that you have to pay your contingency fee to the bank here, in addition to your transit fee. In case one incurs other fees during the transit itself, like breaking down while transiting, or damaging something (very unlikely), the bonded agent will allow you to continue as oppose to hustle to the get the money before you are allowed to exit the Canal. Enrique speaks fluent English. He can be reached at (507) 674-2086, eplummer10@hotmail.com or eplummer10@yahoo.com, and responds to channel 67 and 69 VHF where he is around. The fleet at Balboa and Flamingo on the Pacific side monitor channel 69, whereas they monitor channel 74 at Colon, on the Caribbean side. We paid $600 plus $250 for our boat's transit, plus a refundable $850 buffer. The admeasurer was a very pleasant young man who spoke perfect English. However, our fixed davits and bow pulpit took our nominal 44' boat to over 52'! That was too much of a discrepancy to hide by "holding the other end of the tape". Below 50', the cost is $600. It just went up. And we understand it will go up again in July of 2003. Well, we are getting ahead of ourselves. We will send a detailed email with our experience transiting the Canal in a few days. ("Oh, no! SIESTA is going to send yet another long email"). Please stop us if, for whatever reason, you do not want to receive these "nautical travelogues"! No problema! Fair winds, Ed and Daisy aboard SIESTA, Balboa, Panamá _______________________________________________________________________
PANAMÁ CANAL (Part 2, this time on our own boat!) 5 de abril del 2003 Buenos días, querida familia y amigos, from SIESTA, now anchored in Colón, in the Caribbean! SIESTA transited the Panamá Canal yesterday, the 4th of April, without a glitch, in a smooth, uneventful transit with beautiful weather. Everything went as planned, and it almost seemed routine, after having done a dry run transit on another boat two days before, the best thing we ever did! Many of you, particularly our cruiser friends heading this way, received a detailed account of our dry run. So, we won't repeat the detailed information. Suffice it to say that our transit was a very pleasant, unforgettable experience, one of the highpoints of our entire trip from San Francisco to Marathon. Jack, Gabriel and Aidan joined us as line-handlers. The three of them are cruising from San Diego to Ft. Lauderdale in their Catalina 27!
Our good friend and experienced cruiser, Hank, arrived from Hawaii, via the Bay Area, the night before, just in time to join us for the great adventure.
Jack, Gabriel and Aidan came on board the night before, after we picked up Hank at the airport. Daisy and I held a fairly structured roughly 1-hour briefing on-board, discussing the experience we had the day before, showing all the pictures, and walking through, in fast-forward fashion, with nautical charts, what was going to happen the next day. We all went to bed confident that we were prepared.
The alarm clock went off at 5am, and we called Flamingo Signal on VHF Channel 12 at 5:30am as requested, to receive instructions on our Canal advisor pick-up procedure, time and place. We were then told, in perfect English: "stay moored at BYC, and call us again at 6:45am", consistent with the now-familiar ad-hoc fashion of the Canal management. At 6:50, WE CALLED AGAIN, and we were informed that the advisor would arrive in a launch in a few minutes, and to release the mooring and "hang around" the area, staying clear of the main channel. Several big ships were passing right by us, to transit at that time. Our advisor, Edgar, a fairly young man, arrived, at 7:38am. Timing is not a precise thing, we learned, when it comes to small boats transiting the canal. The advisor spoke perfect English and Spanish. Of German and Irish descent, he turned out to be a sociable, articulate, and proud Panamanian. He told us was called at 4am that morning and told to report as an advisor at 7am. Yikes! In spite of it all, Edgar was one of the reasons we had a great transit. As our advisor George two days before, he was knowlegeable and pleasant.
The first thing Edgar told us is that we needed to hurry up (@#$%%^*&*!!!) toward the Miraflores Locks and catch the cream colored ship with which we were assigned to transit the uplocking part of the transit. By now, we expected this hurry up and wait scenario, so we were all kewl and content! We were heading for the Caribbean! We throttled up to 7.5 knots and arrived at Miraflores Locks in time to tie up to a tug that was tied to the chamber wall, behind the cream-colored huge ship that was to be our "partner" during the uplocking at Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks.
Note: We knew where the www.pancanal.com webcam was located at Miraflores, but we were too busy to pay much attention. Our daughter Ani wrote us an email that she saw SIESTA go by, from her desk at work! As rehearsed, we came alongside the tug, on its port side, and handed our bow line, then stern, then the two spring lines. The crew of the tug made them fast to their cleats or posts, and WE adjusted them on our boat, so we were nicely and securely attached to the tug. "Tugs will ALWAYS tie up to the wall, on the side of land, and opposite the wall that divides the two sets of parallel chambers in the Canal", Edgar explained. The gates closed, and the turbulence started, as we proceeded to rise the first chamber step of an 85' climb to Gatún Lake, for the longest portion of the trip across the huge lake. The turbulence when filling the chamber was not bad since, by now, we knew what to expect, and we held nicely to the tug. :-)
A bell signal rang, and shortly afterwards, the big prop of the ship started turning. Again, the expected turbulence of the prop wash, but,... we were snugly tied to the tug so, no problema! ¿Qué pasa? As the ship slowly moved ahead under its own power, guided by the four locomotives (or mules), we waited for the signal from the advisor that it was time to detach from the tug, and move slowly ahead. Lines were released in the reverse order they were handed, and we proceeded ahead slowly. As we went forward, the tug passed us, and reattached itself to the wall of the next chamber. We repeated the identical procedure of uplocking once again, and, voilà, we were out of the Miraflores Lock.
Side note: We were saddened, when we saw the Pedro Miguel Yacht Club to starboard, as we approached the Pedro Miguel locks, a single chamber that would bring us up to the level of Lake Gatún. We had learned that the Panamanians intend to shut down the club. Currently no cruising boat is allowed to stop there on its crossing of the Canal.
We had visited the Pedro Miguel Yacht Club a few days before. Craig Owings, commodore of the club and a long-time friend and owner of CSY 44 sistership POGO, took us through a tour of the club and the boat yard. We were very impressed with the facilities and the spirit of a small, boat-loving community of yachties that are still there. That will very likely all be gone soon. Currently, once a boat leaves the Pedro Miguel Yacht Club, it is not allowed to return to the Club. We had had dinner with Craig and his charming wife Sarah, a couple of days before our transit. (Sarah had been a tug captain and one of the port captains at the Canal and is now the happily retired co-captain of POGO). We talked at length about how things have changed in Panama since the days of the U.S. Panama Canal Zone and U.S. control of the Canal. As a popular book used in business training today rightly proclaims: "they moved my cheese!". Life moves on, and one has to adapt and move along with the changes. Back to the story: We continued our transit without a hitch. We arrived at 2:05pm at the Gatun locks, where we found out, via our advisor and his magic handy-talky radio, that since we had been faster than anticipated, we had the opportunity to downlock with an earlier ship, if we were willing to "nest" to a trimaran, center-chamber. Knowing how much easier it is to "lock down", we agreed to this. We had said in our original sheet, at the time of admeasuring, that we did not want to be nested at all. So, the advisor pulled out a waiver form that we signed to allow us to proceed. We tied up snugly to the large 50' trimaran ODIN, who was tied to a mooring, and waited for the signal to proceed to the Gatun locks, just a mile away. Downlocking is a cinch, as we had found out in our dry run. However, the danger here is that, while waiting our turn to get into the Gatun locks, canal pilot launches are going back and forth in the waiting area, leaving their trademark unfriendly wakes behind. ODIN had a couple of rented jumbo fenders, which were a big factor in our agreeing to nest. Since the trimaran did not rock much, we did not have a problem. If we had refused to "nest", we probably would have gone into Gatun a couple of hours later. Or, on the other hand, we may have had to spend the night in Gatun lake, due to the unpredictability of the events when transiting the Canal, as we have related. So, we opted to sign and nest! While we waited, some of the crew went swimming in the fresh refreshing water of Gatún Lake. Hank opted for a couple of buckets of water for a refreshing break on the foredeck.
When requested, at 3:35pm, we approached the first of three Gatun chambers, side by side, that would bring us down 85' back to the Atlantic Ocean. We approached as a single "virtual" boat. Now we had twin engines, SIESTA's and ODIN's. Oh, yeah! It turned out the captain of ODIN was an experienced, savy guy. If not, we would have found the contrary, we would have untied from ODIN (we had adjusted all the lines on our side). As it turned out, we went along fine: waiting, drifting, circuling, turning, backing,... we were great, and a sight to see, as the newly-constituted ODIN-SIESTA cruising vessel. We could not have been more unlike each other, as boats. It was like having a banana and a comquat lashed together as one fruit! But, we went on...no problema!
The downlocking was uneventful. After three chambers, we were back in the Atlantic! We headed for Colón, a couple of miles away. We dropped off our temporary crew and proceeded to the flats, the designated anchoring area for cruisers, where we anchored for the night! The trades were howling here. Great place for wind generators! As I write this novel, I have had to come up on deck TWICE to close all the hatches, because of two brief squalls. Welcome back to the good ole Caribbean! We played Jimmy Buffett music all night last night!
Fair winds, y'all!!! Ed and Daisy, with Hank, aboard SIESTA Colón, Panamá
Note on COLÓN, PANAMÁ: On our last day in Colón, we came aboard the CSY 44 Walk-Over HEART OF OAK, owned by Canadians Reg and Mo, who gave us a complete tour of their boat, which was purchased at a bargain price, and completely refitted in Trinidad. Reg and Mo also went through our charts of the San Blas Islands with us, and gave us pointers about where to go. It is a different ball game here on the Caribbean side. The wind blows all the time here. When it is blowing 15 knots, which is seldom, it feels like there is practically no wind. Winds of 20, gusts up to 25, are normal here!
|
