Welcome (back) to the Pacific

We “hurry up and wait” on Saturday.  I phone the canal authority in the morning to confirm our one o’clock rendezvous with our pilot.  I’m told it will now be a three o’clock start.  I pay the marina bill, we take our last languorous showers ashore, wrap up loose ends, gather the hose and shore cord back aboard, stow the kayak below…and wait.  I don’t want to be late, so we depart early. 

We arrive at the rendezvous fifteen minutes early and slowly motor around the anchorage.  There are two steel fishing boats rafted at anchor, and a few small “tramp” freighters.  The only other yacht is a 38’ catamaran.  I radio the Cristobal signal to say we await our pilot.  They tell me our rendezvous will be 3:30.  At 3:45 our pilot, Larry, comes aboard.  I recognize him as the pilot i had in 2010 on the way out these same locks, and he vaguely remembers Akimbo.  Pilots also board the catamaran and one of the fishing boats (red).  We three follow a big ship into the locks.  This ship’s cargo appears to be big wind generator blades. 

The fishing boat ties up ahead of us to the starboard lock wall.  We raft up tightly to the catamaran and motor abreast into the locks.  The catamaran ties to the port wall and we tie to the starboard.  The two of us are suspended together in the middle of the locks.  The gates close.  Turbulence surfaces on the water as we go up. 

Tizz and Don are handling our bow line.  Polly holds our big fender ball at the ready if we get too close to the concrete wall.  Rima handles our stern line at the starboard primary winch.  I’ve run the lines thru snatch blocks on the toe rail, to keep them captured and led fair.  My crew is handling their lines better and more easily than the catamaran’s crew, which includes a male and two female bimbos.  Which isn’t fair of me to say.  There are other ways to contribute to the safe passage of a boat than by handling lines.  After we clear the last locks, we untie from the catamaran, glad to not have our fate so tied to theirs. 

By the time we lock thru and then motor a mile to nearby mooring buoys, it is dark.  Our pilot departs, telling us our next pilot will arrive near six in the morning.  We settle in for the night.  Tizz and Rima sleep in the cockpit until a storm approaches.  After closing the hatches i go on deck to size this storm up.  As the lightning gets closer a very strange sound comes full-throated from the jungle:  howler monkeys living up to their naming.  They apparently don’t like lightning.  Maybe they are howling to warn the next tribe of the approaching storm.  I am rooted where i stand even as the rain starts, listening to a sound i doubt i’ll ever witness in person again.  Grateful for the witnessing. 

I’m up early in the morning.  No need for crew to awake unless they want to.  We’ll simply be motoring for the next five or so hours.  I swim a lap around Akimbo.  The fresh water feels good.  Eat a little breakfast.  Our pilot arrives.  Rima takes a quick dip.  We untie from the mooring and are off.  Thru the day, several big ships go by northbound while we go south.  Lake Gatun is beautiful.  It would be fun if we could cruise a week and explore the lake, but that is not allowed.  There aren’t many ways to tour the lake.  There is a company with boats that drives tourists from a hotel in Gamboa (a small town on the lake).  Rather i would suggest contacting the Smithsonian Institute to see if you could reserve a stay at their island on the lake.  THAT might be worth pursuing. 

We slow down.  The big ship that will join us in these locks will be behind us rather than in front of us and is running late, it seems.  While we wait, Rima serves up a fabulous lunch.  Eventually we raft up with our catamaran friends and motor into the locks and tie up to wait.  The crew on the catamaran hails from many countries but they live in Costa Rica and are bound there.  The ship arrives and we are lowered to the level of small Miraflores lake.  There is a tourist center at the Miraflores lock, its top floor crowded with people.   My crew waves wildly from the foredeck, trying to solicit the same from the tourists.  The catamaran crew joins in and we are rewarded when much of the crowd waves back. 

So, we leave the Caribbean and arrive in the Pacific.  

The pilot boat comes up and retrieves our advisor, Oswaldo.  We pick up a mooring at the Balboa Yacht Club.  We are invited aboard a neighboring boat for drinks, but first Don and Polly want to check in to the nearby hotel.  One of the BYC launches takes them ashore.  We will say our goodbyes at dinner tonight.  Rima and i swim over to our neighbor and get acquainted, while Tizz appreciates some time alone and does a great job cleaning and straightening Akimbo’s interior. 

Thank you Don and Polly, for your help.  I hope you are pleased with your Panama Canal experience.  And thank you Rima and Tizz for not only your crewing but for your embrace of Don and Polly.  Next up…in sequence…Rima and Tizz will inventory our food supply, Greg will arrive in the evening, they’ll all re-provision the next day while i buy paper charts for Hawaii and take care of any departure bureaucracy and last minute work on Akimbo.  Hopefully we will push off the next day after a good night’s sleep.

Hawaii bound, via Cocos Island.  The thing is…there’s a tropical storm (or it might be a hurricane by now) arriving in Hawaii as i write this entry.  Usually storms veer north before they get to Hawaii.  Let’s hope this weather pattern is getting this over with before we get there.  Our planned route will take us south of the storm tracks until we are beyond most of them and can safely head northwest to the islands.  So, look for my next entry here in about a month.  Good luck to us all.