Through the locks

On board Quester, outside Panama City, Panama

The short story is that we're in the Pacific Ocean! I'll send this off to Andy at 7:30 on Friday, so he can post something before we have to leave for Los Pearles - the Pearl Islands just 45 mi. SE of Panama City, where we've been for the past two nights. I've got to type fast. We're leaving at 8. I'm using a Bluetooth keyboard and our iPad which is working great.

It was quite exciting dropping the lines and heading out under power toward the mustering area "F" where all the Oyster yachts dropped anchors to await the arrival of our Panama Canal Advisor. About 25 huge ships littered the large bay/harbor formed by the huge man-made breakwater that runs between Shelter Bay and Colon. There was no problem coming up with the rocks for the breakwater -- they came from all the digging that was forming the Canal.

Advisor arrives from pilot boat

We arrived about an hour early so we could enjoy lunch aboard, and the Canal Advisor arrived about an hour after our 1:00 muster deadline. He was a very pleasant 40ish man who spoke excellent English, a requirement of all Canal workers. We immediately weighed anchor and headed for the 3-step Gatun Locks about 6 miles or one hour away. Just before the locks all sailboats must "raft up" in 3's and we wound up in the middle of two French boats who weren't part of the Oyster Rally and didn't speak much English, and in fact had crew which knew little about sailing or line-handling. That made the rafting process interesting, to say the least.

Fortunately we were able to take the middle position, and the Advisor on the middle boat takes charge of all the navigation and we just did our best to relay his commands in French-like commands (which we looked up in Quester's multi-language sailboat translation dictionary and the one we were loaned by the Powells!)

After the rafts were formed we headed into the first lock as a huge ship was exiting the other lane. We were all terribly excited and a little bit nervous not knowing how much room we would have on either side of our raft, and not knowing whether the boats would be knocked into a wall by the boiling water that swirls around when they close the huge gates behind us and start filling our lock with the water from the lock above. Clever process as it brings our lock's water level up as it brings the next lock's water level down to match. Then they can open the next gates and, voila, we simply motor into the next lock to repeat the process all over again.

OK, crew is being called to prepare to drop the lines to leave so I'll send this much. I'll continue writing once underway and I should be able to get wifi in La Contadores which is an upscale vacation island for Panamanians and supposed to be quite beautiful.

Some pictures of the transit: