After waiting for a week for our transit date in Shelter Bay Marina, near Colon in Panama, we were assigned an afternoon time slot on Feb 7th.  Timo and Hilari have been onboard since St Lucia and will leave us after the transit. We will be welcoming new crew for the next leg. One of them, Jeanette, joined us as the fourth adult line handler required for the transit and wrote this guest log.

About half an hour before we untied the lines I arrived at Shelter bay marina with a bag of wet clothes from the morning laundry that soon dried on deck. Knowing it might be a small chance to join a little earlier than planned, I got a last minute call from Adam and then there was simply no time to spare. Every boat on the canal is required to have four line-handlers plus the skipper and one person had to give up his spot. Lucky me!

A two hour taxi ride got me to the dock just in time. Saltair was already properly prepared with rented huge red fenders and the long thick blue lines that would keep us in place in the locks.

There are two sets of locks, each with three steps. The first part taking you up from the Atlantic and the later returning you down to the Pacific. Assigned the role as "passenger" I was happy just to be onboard for this iconic passage. It later turned out "passenger" could mean both being a "roaming fender" (the person who places an extra fender wherever it might urgently be needed) and a proper line handler, but first we anchored to await our advisor. All boats need an advisor onboard for the whole canal transit and they handle all the communications for entering the locks as well as telling the crew how all the practical stuff works.

As we were going to be the middle boat of our ‘nest’ we got (somewhat confusing) instructions about how we were going to raft up with the two other boats before the first lock. With an almost equally large Hallberg Rassy on port side the masts came a bit too close at first but soon we were sorted out and ready to tie up a smaller catamaran on our starboard side. It looked like it was going to be an easy ride with no line handlers needed at all for us! At least easy for all but Adam at the helm.

We then entered the first lock in our nest. Three boats trying to maneuver together with help from the advisors. Still we ended up doing different things, making it a bit hard to stay centered and straight. The quite turbulent waters as the lock fills up, the wind pushing the boats, and the catamaran being much shorter made it a bit difficult to keep stable.

As we entered the second lock we were told that we should manage the starboard bowline ourselves (relieving the catamarin of that duty) and Timo did a great job as line handler.

When we made it out of the third lock it was already dark and all of us were looking forward to a calm night in the Gatun lake, before the next part of the transit. That did not quite happen!

It turned out we were supposed to have the huge mooring buoy amidship with the other HR on the other side of it. And we got instructed to tie up stern to the wind, which resulted in one of us at all times being the windward side, pushing the fenders up which required attention almost all night.

In the morning a new advisor came onboard and we learned we would only nest with the catamaran, Sea Pearl, for the day. Having a time scheduled we also had a bit of time to kill so we set off without a rush.

We had a pretty landscape along the way, met enormous cargo ships and watched lots of dredging.

But our lockage time got changed along the way and we were running early for the new one so our advisor actually made us turn around and motor back to kill more time.  

When we finally got to enter the lock we realised we would have a cruise ship with a lot of audience behind us and with only being two boats we were now up to handle three lines. No room for mistakes! And we did okay, but had a tricky time catching the retriever lines since we got pushed far to starboard by the wind and they had to throw them quite far for then to reach us. As you are never attached to the lock walls you get thin lines thrown to the boat that you attach to the thick blue borrowed ones, so that the staff at the lock can pull them off your boat and tie them up. Then we have to adjust the length of the lines from the boat. Imagine two or three big boats pulling in them it is a little bit of an effort and requires coordination from the line-handlers. Still we made it out safely and yet again it was dark before the pilot boat came to pick up our advisor and we could make it to the marina. But hey! We made it to the Pacific!

- Jeanette

Bridge of the Atlantic 

Rafting with Bluewater Mooney (HR 54) to start our 'Nest'

Adam concentrating on driving the nest 

Our cargo ship companion for the ascending locks into lake Gatun. The small boats are behind.

Seth setting up the GoPro for a time lapse With Hilari's help

Saltair and Bluewater Mooney in Lake Gatun on the giant mooring 

Day 2 - Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks. Hilari and Jeanette line handling on the bow. (Since the catamaran was so much shorter we had two bow lines)

Screenshot of the live cam in the Miraflores locks. Saltair and the catamaran are in the front with a large passenger ship behind! Quite the audience.

Finally in the Pacific! Beautiful sunset shot by Seth of the Bridge of the Americas.