Tale of the Transit"

April 27, 2005

(Horns heralding our momentous occasion play in the background)

4:00 am - Why does everything that happens on this boat have to happen at such ungodly hours???  Will I ever not have to own an alarm clock?

The day has finally arrived.  Our long anticipated transit through the Panama Canal is just hours away.  We've heard all the horror stories...boats being smashed into the sides, lines being tangled and spinning boats around, tug tie issues, small boats getting caught in big boat prop washes, fenders bursting, arm and legs flaying...God help us, how will we survive???

Dogs walked and boat prepped, our line handlers (Ricardo, Luis, Chollo and Winston) arrive right on time (5:30am).  Promptness is next to godliness in my book, so that's as good a start as any to the day.  It's still dark as we pull away from Flamenco Marina, our last stop in the Pacific.  Wow, this really IS kind of momentous.  We've spent the last eight months on this ocean...let's take a moment and reflect.  Okay, moments over...let's get the hell outta Dodge.

Everyone on board, we head out to the anchorage to await the arrival of our transit advisor.  In the meantime, I get our new crew fed breakfast.  Good thing I've had some experience in feeding hungry guys.  Apple cinnamon pancakes, sausage, juice, coffee....these guys eat like my son and his football buddies from high school.  Everyone fed, the guys give breakfast a thumbs-up!  One meal down, we're off to a good start.

We continue to wait for our advisor who was due at 6:45a.m.  It's now 7:15 and he's still not arrived.  Our concern becomes that if we get detained we will not make our allotted lock times and since we are such a slow vessel, we will be unable to make up much time in between locks increasing the risk of having to spend an overnight in Gatun Lake.  Normally, an overnight anchorage wouldn't be a big deal, but in the Canal, you are required to also keep your line handlers on board.  Not that I've got anything against these guys, they are all quite nice, but where in the hell am I going to sleep four extra people on this boat?  Okay, let's not worry about that....at least not yet.

7:30 am - Our transit advisor arrives and boards, although with Zeus and Thor as the welcoming committee he had second thoughts about coming onboard.  Surprise!!!  We convince him that they're harmless as Thor tries to shove his toys into his hands to get him to play, but Rueben is still a bit unsure of Zeus, so I do my best to keep some distance between them (challenge for the day).  But as any of you with dogs know, if a dog knows you're uncomfortable with them, they'll do their very best to get as close to you as possible.  Zeus, in particular, seems to really sense this in people and makes that extra special effort to get up close and personal.  Hey, he's just trying to cuddle and let you get to know him.  Sitting really close to people and staring at them with those eyes of his is just is way of saying "hi".  Either that or, "I know you're scared shitless of me and I'm loving it...haha!!  Thor might be big shit in charge between the two of us, but I'm the one that scares people.  I rule!!!!"

Okay, so we're all onboard and ready to go...let's go, let's go, let's go!  No, now we get to wait for our lock buddy boat...a very large freighter who needs to enter ahead of us.  Okay, we've got the game plan...it's hurry up and wait.  They ought to print that on the brochures.  You best be on time so that you can wait, but if you're late, you're screwed and you're not getting through...sincerely, The Panama Canal Authority.

Reefer Sun arrives and we head off to Miraflores, the first set of locks.  We will be up locking through a series of three locks here.  Reefer Sun heads in and we follow.  Now's when our line handlers need to go to work.  There are guys on the top of the lock who throw down lines, that our guys need to catch and then attach to our boat lines so that the guys at the top of the lock can pull our boat lines back up and secure them to giant bollards to help hold us in place while up locking.  It's also our line handlers responsibility to keep our lines taunt so that the boat stays as close to the center of the lock as possible while millions of gallons of water come gushing up below us.  Mom was right, breakfast IS the most important meal of the day!

 At this point,  we are center locked.  Lines secured, the gates close behind us sealing us inside to await the swirling waters of death.

(doom, doom, doom!)

The waters start to bubble and churn.  We await whatever torrents of terror the locks are going to dish out.  Everyone... brace for impact!

What?  That's it?  No smashing into the sides, no spinning like a top out of control, nothing, nada, not even any rock n' rolling.  I've had more turbulence in a hot tub. 

And that my friends, is how the rest of the day went.   Doesn't make for interesting reading, but we couldn't of asked for a better way to transit the Canal.

At the second set of locks we were tied to a tug, which was even smoother than being center locked.   Our line handlers didn't even have to do anything but tie us off to the tug's side.

The only scare we had was after completing the up locks.  We had been detained on the outside due to another boat and it put us behind schedule in meeting our locking time on the down locks.  We only had about a 15 minute error window in the schedule and that's cutting it close.  Rueben (our transit advisor) however, was terrific and took us on a short cut and we were able to meet our timeline and get through with no overnight in the lake.  Thank you Rueben!!!

Feeding time - lasagna, salad, garlic bread and oh, don't forget the brownies.  Everyone full and happy, I ask the guys if they want to hang inside and watch a DVD.  Huh?  You would of thought Christmas came early.  It took them 20 minutes just to figure out and agree on what DVD they wanted to watch.  Too funny.

We arrive at our down locks (ahead of schedule...thank you again Rueben) and we are first in with a large ship behind us.  Rueben tells me to let him know if the ship starts to get too close to us as he's heading inside for a bit.  Too close???  What the hell do you mean too close?  As far as we're concerned, anything that big that gets on our radar screen within a two mile radius is TOO close.  But okay, close is sort of a relative term in Canal Land. The last thing you want here is a fender bender.  They're close, but I can't see the whites of anybody's eyes, so I guess we're okay.

Being first in was really pretty cool as when the doors opened, we got an unobstructed view of our new playground...the Atlantic Ocean.  We'd made it!  And we made it without sinking the boat, killing one or the other, losing either of the dogs, getting lost, running out of fuel or water or supplies.  Hot damn...we did it!!!

We drop Rueben off a few miles outside the lock via a transit boat and head to Panama Canal Yacht Club to drop off our line handlers.  It's almost 8 p.m., before we're tied up and everyone's off the boat.  Long day.  We celebrate with a bottle of champagne, the two pieces left of lasagna and an episode of C.S.I. (after all, we've got our priorities).  Do we know how to party or what? 

Our first sunset on the other side...not too shabby.

As there is no rest for the wicked, we have only tonight in Panama as we're heading to Isla Providencia, Columbia at first light.  

Alarm clock set for 5:00 am...here we go again!