Panama Canal … the symbolic gateway into the vast Pacific Ocean

Before going into our transit experience a short and factual discourse on the history of the Canal might be a good idea.

·      1534 – the Spanish first conceived the idea of creating a passage to transport the spoils of their depredation of South America from the west coast of Pacific to the Atlantic on the way to Spain

·      1855 – Panama Railway Company established first connection by rail

·      1879 – Ferdinand de Lesseps [also constructed Suez Canal]. His plan of constructing a canal across the Isthmus with 25 locks was too complicated and after the loss of millions of francs and 25.000 lives the company went bankrupt

·      1894 - second French attempt using the same idea failed

·      1903 – Panama separated from Greater Colombia to become a Republic and engaged with Roosevelt to realize the novel idea of flooding the Chagras river to create an artificial waterway with 3 locks leading up from the Atlantic to Lake Gatun and 3 locks down to the Pacific.

·      1914 – the first ships crossed the Isthmus

·      1999 – the American lease for the canal territory expired and after a 20 year transition period the Panamanian people took over complete ownership and management of the Panama canal

3012275 – that was our Panama Canal Ship Identification Number for the transit. After having transited twice before as hired line hands for other yachts our transit date was set for May 14/15. On the day we were all set with wrapped car tires as additional fenders and 125ft long lines. Apart from ourselves the 2 extra line hands for our crossing were father/daughter team Mark and Marissa from NZ. We weaved our way through the waiting ships and at 1530h picked up Freddy, our advisor in the ‘flats’ outside Cristobal harbor.

 

Almost 100 years after the inauguration of the canal the locks are still operating more or less in their original size and condition and are testimony to an incredible technical achievement at the time and reflect an unprecedented foresight into what the future merchant shipping might require.

We had the [fortunate and unfortunate] opportunity to testify this prescience by being allocated a spot in the locks going up to Lake Gatun behind what is referred to worldwide as a Panamax. With a total width of 106ft these monster bulk carriers are purpose built to maximize the load carried through the 110ft wide lock chambers.

 

The little space left between the stern of ‘Demeter Leader’ and the lock gates was filled with our ‘nest’ of 3 yachts. First we were allocated to raft up with the small mono hull ‘Magic’ only, but minutes before the locks closed a 72ft steel schooner suddenly appeared and joined our nest. Because of the rush the constellation of the 3 yachts was wrong and when entering the chamber the 60 tons of the steel schooner pushed us hard against the lock wall and only with some firm manual interference and thanks to our tires we avoided getting hull damage. The spectacle [and all the women on the three yachts of course] were closed watched by the crew on the bulk carrier …. they apparently enjoyed themselves.

Going through these first three consecutive Gatun Locks was no less than ‘very interesting’ and we were all surprised to come out unscathed. 50 billion gallons of water are flooding the chamber in about 8-12 minutes. This creates enormous water turbulences and the additional prop wash by the bulk carrier when assisting the ‘mules’ [locomotives] moving it into the next lock stretched our lines to the limits We feared that the lines would snap sending our ‘nest’ into a spin or the tension would rip out our cleats. It took some serious wrestling with the lines to stabiles the nest and our gloves came in handy.

2 hours later we looked over our shoulders to say good-bye to the Atlantic and left the last chamber to go into the Lake Gatun. Although we were all glad it was over it was nevertheless a great experience.

We anchored for the night on Lake Gatun and at 0630h the next morning we were joined by our new advisor Moises and motored the 28 miles across Lake Gatun.

Halfway across the lake Moises received notice that an advisor’s instructor and 2 trainees, the first 2 female advisors-to-be would replace him. After the exchange and the third lot of advisors taking charge we continued on our merry way through the Gaillard cut, the narrowest part of the canal towards Piedro Miguel Lock and finally the Miraflores Locks. On the way we saw Titan, a massive crane given to the Canal as a present by Germany. An old coalmining crane it was extensively adapted and is now used to exchange the lock gates. We then passed under the new [guess what] German built Centennial Bridge. One of the conditions to be allowed to go through the Canal is to be able to motor at a continuous speed of 6 knots. Magic, our nesting companion from the day before was pushing too hard and got stuck with some motor problems. We offered our assistance but they already frantically worked on replacing their water pump.

The bulk carrier we shared the chambers of the Gatun Locks with was luckily not scheduled to continue with us on the other side and the water turbulences going down the locks are also much less intense - hence the experience of the first day was not repeated.

We had an easy ride down the Piedro Miquel Lock being nested to a tourist boat. The steel schooner from the day before was tied up further down the chamber alone, on the lock wall. We crossed the small Miraflores Lake and then were joined again by our companions on Magic, who managed to solve their problems just in time to catch their allocated time slot with us and avoid very expensive towing charges should they have required assistance.

At 1350h on May 15 the large gates of the Miraflores Locks opened. Like millions of others before ‘we made it’ and looked down the last part of the shipping lanes towards the legendary Bridge of the Americas … and in the distance the Pacific was beckoning with new adventures.

We called into the marina at Flamenco Island and filled our diesel tanks and all other jerry cans we had on board and dropped anchor in Panama bay. The view of the skyline of Panama City seemed unreal and the next time we will see anything like this again will be on the other side of the Pacific – may be the Gold Coast in Australia.

Across the Caribbean Sea ...

... after the obligatory rig-check, the departure was set for around April 19 and we were looking for an opportune weather forecast for the 600 miles passage across the Caribbean Sea towards Cartagena on the Colombian atlantic coast. But instead of finding the weather window we found Rainer, a fellow cruiser with some more experience [than we had] about radios and computing.

One of the two main issues that kept bothering us over the past 6 or more months were not being able to use our HF radio and attached pactor modem to access weather forecasts and emails while at sea. Each time we tuned or changed frequencies on the radio quite a few of our auxiliary electronic equipment like board computer, inverter or LED lights just to name a few were crashing or switching on or off, without apparent reason. To cut a long story very short now – Rainer has the reputation [according to partner Ulli] to never give up – and he didn’t. He ploughed with us through all the possible options of how to solve the problem.  The solution was to abandon the fickle and badly insulated board computer and rig up our laptops to communicate with the vicious high frequency radio waves.  Thank you, Rainer !!!

While solving the radio issue we also happened to find the solution to the problem why our second set of new AGM batteries [first set of 3 we exchanged as precaution on the Canary Islands before the transatlantic] wouldn’t charge properly nor being able to hold the charge. It was a simple ‘loose screw connection’ …. no more, but hidden away in a maze of cables and connectors. A good result as the rest of our power management installation is now working perfectly.

Reinvigorated by solutions to problems we set off on April 21 to catch the tail end of a northerly low that came down via the Bahamas and Florida with decent NE winds. The swell was a little uncomfortable but the trade-off was that for the first 36 to 48 hours we had 20-30 kn winds and made very good progress catching up on our delayed departure. Closing in on the Colombian coastline we were waiting for the characteristically erratic swell to arrive, but we were becalmed and had to motor for the last 18 hours until an impressive skyline slowly appeared out of the haze. We quickly checked our charts as it looked like we were closing in on Miami [or the Gold Coast] but it was Boca Grande, part of Cartagena.

We just made it before dark to cross the coral bar [erected or piled up by the Spanish almost 250 years ago to successfully deter their English opponents] and rounded the lighthouse into the massive basin of the apparently busiest atlantic trading harbour of Cartagena. The modest Club Nautico, which is undergoing renovations ‘at the moment’ became our home for the next 4 days; it made up with atmosphere, though. The port authority obliged us to employ an agent who in our case was Manfred, a [guess what] German residing there since 27 years. The paper trail that followed was absolutely impressive and we gladly passed this work onto Manfred while exploring the colonial city centre.

4 days was not quite enough to get a full picture of what the underlying social, political and economical issues are, but to sum up Cartagena it felt like a mixture of Genoa for its old port atmosphere, Sevilla for its Spanish architecture, squares and horse drawn carts and all was surrounded by a ‘laundromat’ of drug related money. You could sense and see the stark contrast of absolute poverty and sheer wealth, mixed with a vigor and zest for life necessary to simply survive. I guess this is what Colombia is all about, including some really good coffee.

We left Cartagena the same way we came in, just at dark crossing the coral bar, this time headed for the San Blas islands. The weather forecast was 5 kn winds from the NE to start off with, then nothing at all. Well, at least the direction was correct – as we headed out the wind picked up to about 15 kn and overnight we were hammered by one of the dreaded localized thunderstorms with a serious deluge, accompanied by the erratic swell pattern we expected earlier. But water outside was not quite enough; in the middle of the stormy night we realized that the bilges were full of water, which couldn’t possible have come from the rain only. Having ‘fiddled’ with the refrigeration and water pump in Cartagena already we suspected a burst water hose and correct – it was. So, out came all the provisions stored under the seats in the saloon to access the area behind and under the galley. In we climbed into the tiniest and meanest place one can go while having heavy weather outside, but that is life on a boat !!!! After a few hours of what otherwise would have been a very boring time of sitting inside hiding from the rain we emerged with dry bilges and re-newed water pressure in the system.

While all that happened a big wave must have come over the bow and ripped a series of screws out of the aluminum and fiberglass re-enforced frame holding our trampoline in place. But we only noticed this the next morning when going up front to check for coral heads while navigation through the reefs into the Coco Bandero Cays in the San Blas islands. Luckily the netting of the trampoline was not ripped; the repairs only took a few hours and what else was there to do amongst the paradise islands of the Kuna Indians.

 

Again, 4 days was not quite enough to really understand the situation of the Kuna indians populating the San Blas Islands. Reading up on the history of the Kuna however provided some insight to the life and social structure of this very interesting culture. The Kuna Yala territory is part of Panama, but self-governed by a congress of elders. It is a matrilineal society where the women choose their husbands and they then move into the women’s clan or family.

One of the traditions for the women is to make ‘molas’, a fabric stitched together of various layers depicting traditional patterns and nowadays also more contemporary ideas. It is normally worn by woman around the waist. The Kunas are also quite tolerant of homo- and trans sexuality, meaning that some of the master mola makers like ‘Molalisa’ are transsexuals like Lisa Harris. We negotiated to buy some molas from the women living on the island next to where we anchored before Lisa turned up in her dug-out the following day.  Would have been interesting negotiating with him-her.

 

The Kuna men are skilled fishermen and we enjoyed a feast of lobster and conch we bought for 5 US$ [and some cold beer] and grilled on our superb BBQ .

 

The time we spent anchored at the Coco Bandero, East Holandese and Chichime Cays was much too short, but better than not having been there at all before the paradise of the Kuna indians will have changed forever.

 

After an 'overnighter' we arrived at the doorstep of the busiest merchant shipping channel in the world – the Panama Canal. What a contrast - so close, yet so far away from the culture of the Kuna. Next is the adventure of crossing the canal and then …. the PACIFIC