Peter just sent me an account of his Panama Canal transit and I
thought it might be of interest. It even has a bit of political
content for those interested :-)

Here is a "brief" description of our transit of the canal. It may be a
bit long winded but covers everything.

Firstly the cost. Yachts of under 50 feet pay US$650 but they get you
to sign for $1,500 on your Visa (Mastercard or any other not accepted)
and only take out the $650 if you do not damage their locks. Prior to
paying the fee, a myriad of forms are filled out and the boat is
checked and measured by a measurer who will ask you a number of
questions regarding your vessel including its speed in knots.
Thankfully I had been prior warned and was able to state in a most
convincing manner that it could easily do 8 knots. My friends on
"Hurrah" had not known about this minimum speed when they transited
from the Pacific last year and had to pay an extra $2,300. When Gary
and I went into the Canal Authority office with his canal number card
he explained that the engine of his Tanaya (sp?)37 had been repaired
and he could now do 8 knots. The fee is paid once the measurer has
assessed your vessel and the date of your choice established by phone.

Yachts coming from the Pacific make the passage in one day; those from
the Atlantic side in two. I imagined in my university educated wisdom
that it may be due to the impeding effect of the corriolis force but
was told that it was due to shipping movements.

Each yacht needs to have four line handlers. I searched in vain for
New Zealand ones but as I was the only N.Z. national there I had to
settle for four American ones. These were my friends Heather and Steve
off "Last Resort", a Tamiya (sp? again)37 who I had cruised with in
company with "Hurrah" and two New Yorkers from Queens (they don't like
being referred to as two New York queens), Willie and Don. Willie is a
very nice man of 68 who I met in Cartagena with his wife on board
their converted shrimp trawler with part of the aft deck enclosed for
their parrots. Don is his life long friend who has come for a holiday.
They asked earlier if they come with me. Steve and Heather were on
their way to Belize but kindly offered to stay to help me.

It has been a rather symbiotic relationship in a way. I have tried my
best to teach them to speak English correctly and did my very best to
correct their sloppy habit of eating only with a fork after cutting
their meat with a knife and putting it aside. Steve for his part has
taught me to 'cuss' in American. We Antipodeans don't cuss; we swear.
I have learned "g..damn" and my favourite is Moth..F...er which I am
now adept in the use thereof. However it appears that the delivery of
this is dialectical in that as Steve hails from Oregon and another
friend Billy from Kentucky, there are frequent arguments during my
lessons of the correct pronunciation. It may be of interest to note
that "Hurrah" is firmly Republican while "Last Resort" is staunchly
Democrat. When conversation weakens when we are all together, all I
have to do to get it going again is to ask a question about something
in the American political past. Then there is fire and raised voices.
We are not so intensely politically minded in the Antipodes, only at
election time every three years.

We were scheduled to have the pilot on board at 7;30 on Friday night
and this was confirmed at 11am that day but they said to phone again
before 5pm and when I phoned at 4:45 pm, I was told that he would be
on board ready to go at 5:30. I had just picked up Steve and Heather
who had come from another marina over the other side of the bay by bus
and so I had to race in, get some ice and pick up the other two line
handlers. My young French friend, 12 year old Lancelot asked if I
could give him a lift back to his boat so I ferried him as well. My
dinghy normally planes easily with its 5HP motor but with two 240
pound males as well as myself and miniscule Lancelot in, it merely
dawdled as it squatted in the water.

Was hauling the dinghy up onto the foredeck to deflate it when the
pilot came on board. Everything was ready so started the engine and
tried to haul in the anchor which was buried, with 3 feet of chain in
the mud. Nothing happened so I dived below, checked for voltage at the
electric motor and whacked it judiciously in the right places and it
went. Thank God! I had changed the engine oil, the oil filter, the
gearbox oil, the three fuel filters and cleaned out the fuel water
trap filter, filled and tightened the shaft grease nipple, etc, etc,
etc but then one damn thing didn't work as it should. I never get
depressed by it these days as such things happen to other boats all
the time.

We motored to the first lock in conjunction with two other boats, an
Austrian one which had crossed the Atlantic in safety with nearly 200
other boats in a rally and still proudly bore the large flag and the
five foot side panels declaring it. We all felt instantly superior and
pompously wondered why they were so proud of having sailed in convoy
like that. The other boat was an Australian built steel yacht now
owned by a nice English crew.

Before the lock, after a ship preceded us, we rafted up, beam to beam
with the slightly larger Austrian boat. First we passed over our bow
and stern lines and then I passed the spring lines, one to the stern
of the Austrian from our mid-ship cleat and one to their mid-ship
cleat which was more forward than ours. This single line was the one
that would take the strain as it was mainly the engine of the centre
boat that would drive all three of us forward, helped if necessary by
the thrust of the two side boats. I handed the young Austrian the line
and he fumbled around with his cleat so much and made it much too
slack with non-nautical knots that would be impossible to release once
they had taken a strain, that I said "Make it tighter". It was obvious
that he had never done such a task which had to be completed quickly
as the following 15 knot wind and water were pushing us towards the
lock wall. He stood up his full height and said "You do not give me
orders!!" in a very Teutonic manner and walked away. I did the job
myself.

This episode was a good thing as both the English crew and Steve and
Heather, and after we explained, also the pilot who relayed the
information to the other two pilots via radio in Spanish - were John
Clees fans. People were calling out over the deck of the Austrian boat
"We won't talk about the war". When the pilot called to me the next
day on the foredeck, "Release the lines" and without saying please, he
was met with "You do not give me orders" in my best Germanic accent.
We could hear the same on the English boat but their accents were
better than mine. The Austrians, being surrounded, ignored us. They
were unfriendly to start with, possibly because we both lacked an ARC
rally flag.

Anyway, back to the first lock. We motored in and when we were abreast
of them the two line handlers threw the weighted monkey fists with a
small line attached which we tied to our 125 foot long lines. Poor
Heather, who did not see it coming was hit on the head. As the three
boats slowly moved past the open lock doors into the chamber, the line
handlers walked with us, much like walking a poodle until they hauled
in our larger lines and dropped the loops over a bollard whereupon we
hauled them in as tight as possible to prevent movement from the
surging inrush of water. Ahead of us was the ship with its four
electric mules on railway lines that both secured the ship and pulled
it forward. Once the lock doors behind us closed, the water came in
from the lock floor trying to push us around violently. It took only
15 minutes for the 1,000 foot long lock to fill and raise us 9 metres
to the level of the second lock. We had to keep taking in the lines as
we rose.

A bell rang and the doors were opened. We waited a few minutes while
the ship moved ahead and then the lines were ordered slackened and
pulled aboard with the light lines still attached as the heavier lines
would be too hard to pull through the water while the line handlers
walked us to the next lock chamber. These sequences were repeated for
the second and third locks until we hauled in the lines and exited the
locks. Once out, we released the lines securing the boats together and
motored to a nearby mooring buoy for the night, cooked dinner of prawn
fried rice, the crew partook of a few drinks and we went to sleep
expecting the return of the pilot as announced, at 6am when it was
still dark.

I woke up at 4:45 and started to cook breakfast of scrambled eggs
(with onions and red and white capsicums), sausages, baked beans and
toast. I need not have bother as the pilot boat came at 8am and I had
to heat up his breakfast from cold.

We motored at about 6.1 knots the 25 miles of Gatun Lake to the Pedro
Miguel lock which is just after the famous and notorious Calebra Cut
where a mountain was blasted away to create the canal. It is wider now
as they have been working away on it for years and needs to be wider
still for the new canal which is being built to take larger shipping.
No ships can pass each other during this part of the passage and each
has a large tug attached hard up to its stern in case of engine
failures etc.

Before reaching this part of the canal, we took a long short cut open
for smaller vessels through the Banana Reach which is not shaped like
a banana and winds between various flooded hill tops that are now
jungle clad islands. On one of them I was pleased to see the
Smithsonian Tropical Research Centre that I had heard of previously as
I have the ambition of visiting all of the Smithsonian Museums. As we
headed through a long open reach, the pilot said "We are not allowed
to do this and do not write on a web site about it but do you want to
use your foresail", whereupon we rolled out the entire genoa and with
the wind on the beam, added an extra knot or so to our progress.
Entering the main channel we passed the second largest floating crane
in the world which the Panamanians had bought from the Americans for
one dollar. It had been taken by them from Germany after the Second
World War as reparations but seldom used. At the time we were too far
from the Austrian boat behind us to not talk about the war but as if
we were all thinking the same thing, the English called us up on the
VHF and without changing channels, we received the information that
they were not going to talk about the war. We had lunch of pasta and
meat sauce cooked in my largest pot, the pressure cooker. I
experimented and found that yes, you can throw the penne pasta in with
the sauce to cook.

The Pedro Miguel is only one lock and is about a mile upstream of the
Miraflores locks and we were lowered to the level of the Pacific Ocean
much more gently that we rose on the Atlantic side, rafting up as
before. My family watched us going through on the web cam which Manuel
the pilot asked to be trained on us

We motored out under the Bridge of The Americas and around to the
rather crowded free anchorage.

We took the hired lines ashore and I sent my crew home to Colon in a
taxi. It was sad to see Heather and Steve go as they had been very
good friends but they are looking at coming to Australia or Malaysia
by air after the next fire fighting season for a visit. Hopefully they
will not have forgotten the English and dining lesson I gave them.
Strangely for an American, Heather asked for a jar of Marmite which I
gave her as she had tried and liked it when she had visited Australia
recently on fire fighting business (she and Steve work with forest
fires, Steve flies helicopters and she is often his boss). She thinks
the reason why Americans don't like it is because they put too much
on. Manuel, our pilot, who they had met before on their transit, tried
some and quickly spat it overboard with a disgusted look.

I think that's all.

Ciao
Peter
Cheers,

Bruce