14 November 2012; Panama Canal, Panama.

It was extremely busy at the West Anchorage of Cristobal with a large number of ships waiting for a canal transit. On the East side were a number of containerships waiting to dock at Manzanillo port, just east of the Canal. They cannot anchor because it too deep there and that creates a problem. They drift all over place and of course also onto our course line.   As explained in my last Canal blog, they are not regulated by the Panama Canal as the East area is out of their jurisdiction. So we had to wriggle our way through the accumulated drifters to get to the breakwaters for a 05.00 arrival. We work that sort of thing into our voyage plan and thus we had extra time on our hands for that wriggling and that meant that the bridge sailed through the breakwaters at 05.00.14 and I could not make it more precise.

The Canal Authorities were on time as well as we had an early first locks time of 06.30 and that meant that the whole boarding circus had to be done quickly. So without much ado, we were cleared and sailed towards the Gatun Locks. The weather was holding nicely with mainly overcast skies, but later even the sun come through. The first pilot for today was a man who worried about his weight, so all the way through his conning period he was jumping up and down and using these hand things that develop your first and lower arm muscles. Together with his jumping up and down he made for a very active operation.

On the left, a Panama Canal barge with tugboat. The Containership is on the Northbound Convoy and the yellow tanker is the one ahead of us in the southbound Convoy.

I have included these two photos, as they show how much wider the Canal is now. Instead of blind corners we can see at various points for long stretches through the Canal. This is due to the widening of the Canal. Here we can see the widening of the canal going on. Note how far the buoys are from the shore. The area has already been deepened but needs more work before the buoys are moved closer to the shore.

The Radar shows the same thing, with the big container ship echo nearly merging with the land, and the AIS triangle of the yellow tanker and the barge in the lower part of the screen.

The same photo translates now into a radar picture. The little white triangle with the white line pointing up, is the yellow tanker. lost in yellow is the container ship going the otherway. The white triangle in the middle is the tug and barge and our ship is all the way at the bottom of the screeen.

In the 2^nd locks we got a cadet pilot on board and that was interesting. First of all, this pilot was a woman and 2ndly she spoke Dutch.  There are not many (I have not come across a single female canal pilot yet) female canal pilots if any but it seems to be changing now. More startling was that she spoke Dutch and it turned out that she had studied at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Although everybody speaks English in Holland, pub lives is hard without speaking the lingo, and show me the first student who can survive without healthy doses of Dutch partying.

The Panama Canal cannot survive without rain, as it produces all the water for Lake and thus the Locks. So by the time we came to the 2^nd set of locks, the Pedro Miguel, we got a good show of Panamanian Rain Forest rain. Luckily it lasted only until we came out of that single lock and by the time we came to the last locks, The Miraflores, the ship was still soaking wet but it was dry again. The guests came out on deck again to watch phenomena that you can only really see well from these locks, the water release of the culverts that drains the locks.  Why this lock is better than the other one, is something I have not figured out yet but it always seems to be more “wilder” here than at the other locks.

The last (Miraflores) Locks as seen from the webcam. (Courtesy Matt. Mauk) 

We had a very swift transit and by 16.30 we were in open sea again. The actual transit lasted from 06.30 entering first lock until 14.35 leaving the last lock, and from sea buoy to sea buoy from 04.45 to 16.30.

Tonight we will sail under the coast of Panama and then tomorrow afternoon we will be in Gulfo Dulce for some scenic cruising. For now the weather looks promising, with the ending of the rainy season, we should have a chance of some good scenery.