Panama Canal Transit Part 3 – Lake Gatun

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Continued… Once we exited the lock, we were officially in Lake Gatun. We needed to cross the 26 miles (33 km) lake to reach the set of locks that would take us back down to sea level. Fifteen years ago, we had started our canal transit in the afternoon, spent the night in the lake, and finished the transit the next morning. While we weren’t exactly excited about starting at 0400 today, we preferred an early start over spending the night in the lake (primarily due to lack of bedding for everyone onboard).

Lake Gatun is an artificial lake 85 feet (26 meters) above sea level. When the French had first started building the canal, they were attempting to dig a trench through the mountains so that the entire canal was at sea level. Due to the mountains being solid rock, the propensity of the mudslides in the areas that were not rock, and the propensity for flooding in the rainy season, a trench wasn’t viable. The French company went bankrupt. When the Americans took over the canal, they re-engineered it to be a gravity-fed lock system powered by water from this artificial lake, which was created by damming up the Chagres River. At the time, it was the largest artificial lake in the world.

As soon as we untied, Christi started making breakfast for the crew. None of us had eaten before leaving, and everyone was happy to celebrate successfully navigating the most difficult part of the locks (going up) with a meal.

Christi starting on breakfast

Eric had previously set a course through the canal, but the advisors weren’t happy with what Eric had set. They wanted him to run very close to the green buoys to leave lots of space for the faster traffic to pass us. This video was originally taken to document the vessels passing us.

But as you see in the video, Kim happened to catch the moment that Christi and Keith spotted birds fighting in mid-air over a fish. If you look very closely at the birds flying away, you can see the fish dangling from one of their mouths.

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Panama Canal Transit Part 2 – The Pedro Miguel Lock

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continued… We were now 54 feet higher above sea level than we had been before entering the first of the two Mira Flores locks. Here are our advisors strategizing about the next lock, while Eric waited for directions.

Amado to the left and Thaddeus in the middle

While we were waiting for the container ship in front of us to be disconnected from the trains (called mules) that held it in place while the waters were turbulent, a giant container ship pulled into the new, larger lock next to us. 

giant container ship in the new, bigger lock

The construction on a third, larger set of locks to accommodate bigger ships began in 2007. We’d seen the construction when we went through the canal in 2009.  The new set of locks was completed in 2016. 

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The Panama Canal Transit Part 1 — The Mira Flores Locks

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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 Thaddeus, a trainee advisor, and other man as Amado, his trainer. Thaddeus (the trainee) was very serious; Amado (the trainer) was more relaxed.

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!

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More Sightseeing in Panama City

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Saturday, January 18 — We forgot to mention that this week, we’d had the bottom cleaned. The bottom cleaning guy had approached us as soon as we’d pulled into the slip the previous Saturday, and was insistent about doing our bottom. He kept coming back again and again. He didn’t speak any English. When Eric finally asked him the price, Eric thought the guy had said $40, which was an amazingly good deal, so Eric said yes.

The bill he presented us with was $400. We have found out the hard way that in order for a boat to go to the Galapagos, you have to have a super bottom cleaning done, accompanied with a certification. The guy apparently thought we were going to the Galapagos and gave us the uber cleaning, and thanks to the language barrier, Eric didn’t understand what the guy’s intentions were. Eric was able to negotiate him down to $350, but that was an expensive lesson to learn. On the bright side, Kosmos’s bottom is probably the cleanest it’s ever been.

On to today… This morning, Eric spent the morning getting the fenders and lines situated for the canal transit while Christi and Keith did school.

One of the other cruisers had told us that they’d hired a gentleman with a mini-van, named Gustavo, to take them on a sightseeing tour and then to the grocery store. They said he was really good and reasonably priced, so we booked him for this morning. Gustavo picked us up from the marina at 1100, then drove downtown to pick up our crew from their hotel. 

From there, he drove us to the Centennial Bridge, which was about 10 miles north. Gustavo explained that up until 1979, the Americans controlled not only the canal, but also a several mile wide strip of land on both sides of the canal. Most of the drive was through the former American territory called the Canal Zone. He pointed out former military bases that had been repurposed for other uses. One was now a small plane airport, another housed a collection of different facilities. We passed the Pedro Miguel lock, along with a couple of small towns, one on each side of the Pedro Miguel locks, that had been purpose built for the canal workers. But the majority of the land was undeveloped.

The Centennial Bridge was built in 2004 to help ease the traffic congestion on the Bridge of the Americas, which at the time was the only bridge across the canal into Panama City. Gustavo drove us across the Centennial Bridge, which had beautiful views of the canal below.

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Keith’s Perspective on Panama City/Le Point de Vue de Keith sur Panama City

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This week has been very eventful. On Saturday morning we arrived at Panama. We did the usual settling in process, then went to go eat something. But in Panama, breakfast really isn’t a thing, so there weren’t any restaurants open. So we just went back to the boat and had some eggs. We checked into the port captain and immigration, then went ate at a restaurant. Mom’s food choices were limited because almost everything had black pepper, and my food was okay.

This restaurant had cute decorations, but the food wasn’t good

Cette semaine il s’est passé beaucoup de choses. Samedi on est arrivé au Panama. On s’est installé, et après on a essayé de manger quelque chose. Mais au Panama, il n’y a pas de petit déjeuner, donc nous avons mangé sur le bateau. Nous avons fait l’émigration et on s’est enregistré auprès du capitaine du port. Après ça nous avons trouvé quelque chose à manger. Maman ne pouvait pas manger beaucoup parce que toutes choses avaient du poivre.

This bird chirped almost the whole meal!
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