On Sunday, February 1, we were extremely jet lagged and moved slowly all day. Since we were out of perishable food, we wanted to take the marina bus to town to go to the grocery store. While we were in San Diego, a rally of boats arrived that had crossed the Atlantic together. Between the rally boats, the Ocean Posse boats congregating here, and the boats that still hadn’t been able to leave due to continuing adverse weather, the marina was jam packed. The bus didn’t run on Sundays, and was already full for Monday. Sign-ups hadn’t started yet for Tuesday.  

continued… It was exhilarating when the last Gatun lock doors opened into the Caribbean Sea. We did it! And with no damage to the boat and no injuries! Woo hoo!

We quickly untied and drove forward into the northern portion of the canal, which was located in the protected waters of Bahia Limon (note, we can’t edit the really old posts, so we want to note that the proper translation for limon is lime, not lemon). While we were in the locks, we’d been mostly protected from the wind, so when we emerged, we were a little surprised about how windy it was. Even in the protected bay, there were whitecaps.

Shortly beyond the locks was the Gatun Bridge, which hadn’t existed when we’d gone through the canal fifteen-years ago.

Continued… As we drove towards the Gatun Locks, we were told that this time, the large ship would be tied up behind us. That was fantastic news, as it meant we wouldn’t have to deal with the turbulent waters created by the ship’s prop wash this time around. We were also told that we would again be tied to the wall on the starboard (right) side with the sailboat nested to us on the port (left).

Maneuvering into the lock and tying up went smoothly.

Since Kosmos was already at the top of the lock wall, our line handlers simply handed the lines to the canal workers, who tied them to the walls — there was no dramatic throwing/catching of the canal’s lines, and no fears of tying the knot wrong and our line untying from the canal’s.