Transiting the Panama Canal - Blogs

We left San Blas just before Kasuje but arrived more than an hour later in Shelter Bay around 09:40 St Lucian time. Passage was OK, but I didn't sleep much. Lots of moaning about putting up more sail and racing Kasuje! I resisted the calls when I was up, on the grounds that we are not in a hurry and people on board need to sleep and be comfortable, rather than have the boat crash around all night!

Quite an amazing sight at the entrance seeing loads of ships anchored waiting for their turn to get through. We are scheduled to leave on Tuesday.

Malcy was for organising jobs as soon as we arrived, but when everyone else was congregating in the bar for a beer he was dragged kicking and screaming to get a few down his neck! Unfortunately it wasn't the best preparation for his next unexpected job! Arriving back at Quasar, a copper elbow connecting the holding tank and the seacock had burst, so the boat was sinking in a mixture of seawater and excrement!

2 hours later with a little assistance from me, Malcy had re-piped the offending part cleared up the boat and we were back in business! I then had another shower, retired for lunch and got involved in a group of 3 boats on
a sort of bring and cook barbeque! These people are not involved in WARC, but apparently it is normal practice for lots of livaboard yachts to get together once a week for these social occasions! Don't remember many of their names, but one was called Malcolm (easy) and 3 were ex-BA pilots.

Woke up about half seven after returning to the boat and went back to the yacht club, ate, and watched the last bits of the Super-Bowl with Lindsey, Steve and Guy! JB has gone to transit the Canal with Cleone. James and she are then returning to help Kasuje on Tuesday, as everyone has to have a minimum of 5 on board.

Quasar V of Lleyn - Log

Jus'Do It 3 - Panama Canal:
We had a super trip through the canal, stopping overnight in Gatun Lake. We heard lots of animal noises throughout the night and in the morning we heard king kong waking up! The next days passage was thoroughly enjoyable. Our advisor,Daniel ,( who comes aboard to supervise our passage) was really informative , and good crack .We left about 7am, through the banana passage ( a short cut for smaller boats), travelled through the lake and on to the downward locks. We saw a manatee, which are now quite rare as they’ve been killed off by all the boat traffic, and towards the end a big alligator on the shore. Daniel tells us a man was eaten by one last month.There is also lots of bird life, large bird of prey circling almost constantly. Still no sloths to be seen despite Daniel telling us there’s lots of them! The line handlers are all friendly and happy to wave and smile for the camera. Scott puts on Ian’s(towelling) Kilt (thanks Lilia!) for our passage through the last locks and we hoist the Scotland and England flags – although I’m not happy with the England one being above the Scottish one!

We’re through early afternoon and into the Pacific!!! Panama City looks like New York with all these glossy skyscrapers. We motor to our destination, Flamenco Marina, and go out to enjoy the local bars and restaurants which are plentiful, lively and cheap!

Yesterday was the first day of the carnival so we ventured in warily after lots of warnings about how wild it was going to be. We had a ball! We got there for the start of the parade, lots of music , dancing, and amazing floats. Everyone out on the streets drinking and eating and dancing. all shapes forms and colours! We sample the local food, chicken and pickled quails eggs.( Scott’s on the loo for most of today – rest of us all fine as usual! ) We head back around midnight after a superb day – it’s on until Tuesday so we’ll be back for more! A bit less energetic today!

Off to explore the old town today after we’ve hoovered up all the confetti that’s all over the boat. No Scott and Sue haven’t got married yet, we all just got covered with spray and paper – seems to be a tradition of the carnival and we all got stuck in!

All for now! – keep in touch ! xxx

Andante of Mersey - Panama Canal

Last evening went up three massive locks and spent night at anchor in lake.la. Early call 5.30 awaiting new pilot who hasn't turned up yet. Bacon sandwich for breakfast. Beautiful dawn-old moon setting. Today we have three downhill locks to manoeuvre. One at about 4pm your time. 12 yachts will be going through together, last night we were on the outside of the 2nd group - maybe same today. The lock web cam will be focusing on us and so you may see us. We should arrive at our Panama City marina at teatime.

Love to all from the Andante Crew.

Kasuje - New skipper on board?

Hi all. After the flippant , almost irreverent daily logs that have recently been posted by the ''Kids'' I thought that today a more sober sailing description of a near perfect night time passage would be in order. For those of you who prefer descriptions of beach soirees, finding nemo moments, and the general mayhem when we hit land , you will have to wait for another day!!

The passage from Sans Blas to Colon at the head of the Panama canal proposes to be an interesting but not over complicated sail, so in order to put to the test Guys newly acquired skills, I suggested mid afternoon prior to departure, that he should skipper the yacht on the passage!! A suggestion that was greeted with Guys, quiet, thoughtful expression.

After a few moments deliberation ''OK'' came the response.

I set three parameters:
1) We sail the whole passage.
2) We should arrive as near to first light as practical.
3) He is not to spill the evenings Gin & Tonic.

Guy immediately set about his task with youthful exuberance.
Three quarters of an hour was diligently spent plotting routes , re-plotting ,assessing options before eventually deciding on his perfect passage and e.t.a. Then the weather forecast was requested from Meteo France and downloaded onto our charts. Armed with this information the difficult decision of which rig arrangement should he choose ( we like to set up the rig for the whole passage before departure ,if at all possible). After much deliberation an unexpected complicated arrangement of normal Genoa and main to Port and poled out genoa and prevented main to starboard. Our obligatory storm sail was set amidships . A further rig inspection by the new skipper, now warming to his task, revealed some wear on the Genoa sheet, so crew member Rodders was instructed to shorten the sheets by 2 metres whip the ends and re-attach to the Genoa.
Supper was taken before departure where I thru in another flanker.
I thought itapt and appropiate in this idylic place not to start the engine at all until we had reached the marina in Colon. More thought by Guy, a little assistance from me and a plan was laid to sail off the anchor.
The sails were set and trimmed to perfection and we settled in to the night watches.
The passage was spectacularly good, clear skies flat seas and plenty of commercial traffic to keep us busy.
Guy timed the course changes with engineers precision and called the last gybe absolutely spot on, not an easy thing to call, more akin to timing an inside break rather than running round the outside. We even passed the breakwater at Colon Marina 47 minutes after sunrise, perfect.
So in two weeks Guy has achieved this high level of competence.
I also think he really enjoyed it!!
Maybe I'll sit back for the rest of the trip.

Keep the emails coming it's great to hear from you and keeps home a little nearer.

Kind Regards
Skipper Rodders

It's a lonely life being the duty Net Controller when you are at the back of the fleet.

The last few miles always seem to take ages, and this trip was the same. What was different was the glorious weather, the glorious scenery and the glorious wind behind us - normally the last few miles are upwind into a nasty grey sea, with cold water splashing into the cockpit and wind-over tide making for a lumpy swell. After a role call that took all of 5 minutes, yesterday, only the last was true, but Cleone made light of it and we romped home to Panama, finishing well before it got dark and well before we anticipated. The first batch of boats had already started their transit of the Canal just before we arrived, and groups have been leaving ever since, so we have not had a chance to catch up with the rest of the fleet. But having said that, two of our particular friends, Kasuje and Quasar V, are still dilly-dallying in the San Blas Islands, so not everyone has yet arrived - I guess we won't all get together until just before we set off for Ecuador.

Shelter Bay Marina is just that - it's a very sheltered Marina, just inside the long but not very substantial breakwaters that guard the entrance to the Panama Canal. It's an old American base across the other side of the bay from Colon, and it's literally the back of beyond. Apart from the very hospitable but early-closing yacht club, there is nothing here but a nature reserve (and a light-house and a substantial acreage of hard-standing, with several livaboards in various stages of lenthy refits. So we've had a comparitively quiet few days recovering. Cleone needed quite a lot of attention, and, thanks to new crewman Will Anderson, she has had new aft lower shrouds fitted, a new hatch cover (and thanks to Rosie Anderson and John Dyer for that), and the valves for the holding tank repaired (not a nice one, that).

And so we are poised for our transit of the canal, hopefully starting tomorrow evening.

All well, and delighted to be here and to welcome Will on board,

Best wishes,

James, Chris, Elizabeth and Will

Yacht CLEONE
Shelter Bay Marina - Colon - Panama

World ARC