On January 25th, we started our journey through the Panama canal. This was exceptionally exciting for me for two reasons. First, I’d never been through a lock of any kind before, and while the Panama Canal’s locks are about the same size as the rest of my boat mates have through, they’re still really impressive feats of engineering. Secondly, it’s kinda cool to be in places that we read about in history. Sure, in school I learned that thousands of people worked on the canal (and died) and it took immense amounts of manpower to build, but it’s entirely different to be actually there, holding the lines, fighting the wind and current.
As part of our transit procedures, we were assigned an adviser who joined our boat before we rafted up with the other boats and went through the locks. I thought our adviser, Carlos, was hilarious and very helpful, and I’m glad we got to go through the first half with him. I’m even more glad that we kept his accident record at zero, because even though I wanted our transit to be exciting, I’d rather not spend it in the hospital.
Getting ready to go through the locks was about as much of an adventure as going through the locks themselves. We got to the entrance to them around 7pm, so it was already dark out. The canal had lights, but we had to raft up (attach ourselves) to another boat, which had yet another boat on its other side. The rafting difficulty was compounded by the fact that our advisers spoke primarily Spanish, the boat in the middle spoke primarily French, and we spoke primarily English. After the three of us were all connected, we headed into the first lock.
Since we had a boat on our port (left, facing the bow) side, we only needed to attach lines to side of the canal on our starboard (right, facing the bow) side. This was accomplished pretty simply; workers on the side of the canal threw lines that had a monkey’s fist (a knot that gives a line weight, so it can be thrown) at our boat, we caught them (after a try or two), attached them to our lines, which we held on to, and the worker pulled the line back to the side of the canal. Once they had our lines, they could walk with it alongside the lock until we were at the point where it was attached to the top of the lock. We worked in teams of two to pull in slack as we went up so that the boat farthest from us wouldn’t slam into the opposite wall.
Lucy and I were on the stern, and we had to continually pull the line in and secure it so that we’d stay relatively in the middle of the lock (i.e. not smashing into anything). In the locks, we were fighting the wind as we went up, which made pulling in really difficult. As we went on, we gained more experience and the locks got progressively easier.
The locks were successfully crossed after about two hours, and we had a scenic view of the ocean all the way at the bottom of the ocean. It was really cool seeing the drop off, knowing that we were just down there. I don’t think I’ll ever fully grasp engineering or physics, but I’m really grateful that it works so well.
We spent the night in the man-made Gatun Lake, on a floating plastic mooring thingy that clanked against us all night. Since I had the berth this week, I got a front-row seat to hearing the noise. Sufficient to say, I’m definitely looking forward to sleeping in the Pacific. Willie got to sleep inside last night, not for the noise but rather crocodiles. The lake is a common place for them, and while Willie is fierce, I’m sure he slept better inside.
That was our first day in the canal. Stay tuned for the (very exciting) part two soon!
