Sunday, January 19 — We’d meant to set the alarm for 0300, but Christi screwed up and set it for 0200. She was able to reset it, roll over and go back to sleep, but Eric was up for the day. Which worked out okay, because our crew was also up at 0200 and texting Eric about their status.

The crew arrived at 0250. Eric let the crew in the marina gate. Christi got up at 0300 and immediately started making coffee. We did all the last things needed to get ready to take Kosmos to sea, and untied at 0400. Eric decided to run the generator and AC all day so that the fresh lake water would flush out any salt buildup in the units, as well as keeping it cooler inside. 

Eric drove us to the rendezvous site between buoys 4 and 6, where we did a loop until we saw the pilot boat approaching us. The pilot boat pulled up along side us and a man jumped aboard. Then, much to our surprise, a second man jumped aboard, as well. 

The first man introduced himself as a trainee advisor and other man as his trainer. The trainee was very serious; the trainer was more relaxed (we are embarrassed to admit that we don’t remember their names).  

We drove towards the first of the two Mira Flores locks. The last time we went through the canal, we’d had five line handlers – three highly experienced boaters and what we’d thought were two professional line handlers (we later found out that only one of them was an experienced canal line handler). Christi was the videographer. This time, Christi was line handling, and none of our crew were experienced. But based on our experience the last time, we felt the crew was trained well enough and that all would be fine. 

While the canal was normally calm, every time a large ships or pilot boat passed us, it created sizable wakes — and we really had to hold on!

As we drove along, we passed the loading/unloading docks.

We approached the first of the two Mira Flores locks at around 0545. We woke Keith up as we pulled in behind a container ship.

The advisors told us we’d be going side-tie on the starboard side, with a sailboat nested to us on the port side. We hadn’t planned for this, as we had specifically requested that we not be on the wall. 

Last time we’d gone through, we were in the middle of the canal for four of the locks. This meant that there were four lines – one on each corner. There were two canal workers on each side of the canal helping us to tie up. The line load of the boat was more or less evenly disbursed amongst the four people as they held the boat in place in the middle of the canal while the water went in/out. 

Last time, we were nested for the other two locks. This meant that we rafted up to a tug boat that was side-tied to the wall. We’d pulled up alongside the boat and threw our lines to them. They secured our lines to their boat, and we sat back and relaxed until the gates opened and it was time to untie and move forward.  

Eric made the executive decision that all the crew members would stay at the same stations that he’d assigned when we thought we were going to be in the middle. Mike was forward starboard, Brianna aft starboard. Jan was up front helping Mike, Christi and Kim were in the back helping Brianna. 

Eric had carefully positioned all of the fenders on Saturday morning before we went sightseeing, and some of the fenders needed to be repositioned for the nesting.

Tying up to the wall the first time was a bit intimidating. Eric had to bow-thrust close to the wall. The canal crew threw the lines down to Brianna and Mike. They each needed to attach one of Kosmos’s lines to the canal’s, then the canal crew would pull our lines up to the top of the wall. Brianna was supposed to secure her line first. She was slow and careful about tying her knot. Mike, however, quickly tied the knot and signaled to the crew to pull it up before Brianna had finished. Much to Mike’s dismay, the knot fell apart as the canal worker pulled Mike’s line up. Mike got it right the second time, though.

The bright side about being on the wall was that, since the line handlers were simply dropping the line down instead of throwing it out to the middle of the canal, it wasn’t necessary to put a weight on the line. We’ve heard several horror stories of boats being damaged from the weights hitting a window or solar panel when thrown.

Once both lines were pulled up, the workers secured them to cleats in the top of the wall. Eric had the engine on and was making adjustments as needed to help the boat stay in position.

The sailboat came up alongside us. Christi and Jan grabbed the lines from the sailboat and secured them to Kosmos. Both sets of crews made sure that there were enough well-positioned fenders that the boats wouldn’t damage one another and that the boats were properly secured. Nesting together went okay overall, but both sets of crews were tense.

The gates shut.

The water started filling up, making the conditions turbulent. Kosmos was moving a lot. As the water lifted Kosmos upward, it created slack in the lines. Brianna and Mike needed to continually pull in our lines in to keep the lines taught and Kosmos close to the wall. Both Brianna and Mike were having a hard time getting a feel for exactly the right amount of tension, and the boat swung away from the wall. They also had a hard time getting used to the motion so as to identify exactly the right moments to pull on the lines in order to pull us back to the wall. Eric was bow thrustering like crazy to help the line handlers get the boat/keep the boat properly positioned. Here is a video of Brianna pulling Kosmos back to the wall.

We were also unprepared for how much physical strength was needed in the aft, which took the brunt of the force. Not only was Brianna dealing with Kosmos’s 60,000 pounds (remember, we’d just fueled up, so Kosmos was extra heavy), Brianna was also pulling the weight of the sailboat, too. Most of the time, either Christi or Kim helped Brianna pull, and there were points in time when all three women were pulling together. 

Eric had happened to put the biggest fender on the aft starboard corner, which turned out to be a blessing. There were several points where that fender protected us from smashing into the wall. 

Once we were to the top of the lock, the advisors warned us that it was going to get turbulent again from the prop wash created by the container ship as it moved to the next lock. It did indeed become quite turbulent for a few minutes, and the line handlers again had to hold tight. Meanwhile, the sailboat untied from us and pulled away. 

Once the container ship was positioned in the next lock, the canal crew untied our lines from the wall and the advisors directed us to move to behind the ship. The sailboat slowed down and let us pass them. 

In the next lock, we positioned ourselves exactly the same as last time – we tied up along the wall behind the container ship.

Then the sailboat came up and nested alongside Kosmos. This time around, the entire tie-up process went a lot more smoothly than it had the first time. The lock gates closed, and Mike and Brianna did an excellent job of keeping us close to the wall as the lock filled.

However, as you can see in the video above, the wall was not flush. It had lots of indentions that served various purposes. One of the fenders became stuck in a hole in the wall. It was pulling down on the boat and creating increasing amounts of tension as the lock was pushing us up. The trainee advisor came out to help get the fender unstuck (we don’t think he was supposed to physically help us, just direct us). He then called Christi and Jan to the starboard side to monitor the fenders to make sure none got stuck again.

Some adjustments had to be made to the fenders as we rose up, but all in all, everything else went fairly smoothly.

We made it to the top of the second lock!

To be continued….