By Grant
6th July 2022 and we finally traversed the Americas and traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific. So much anticipation about the journey. So much planning and reading about the canal transit and yet still a feeling of trepidation.
We had enjoyed the most sublime time in San Blas with our friends from Water Dogs, Kithara, Milonga and Dragonfly, and in Linton Bay with our friend Jaco. But I must say that even though it was all wonderful I felt the need to move on. It was time to go to the Pacific. According to our original planning we were already 2 months behind schedule. When you are having fun, time seems to stand still.
The preparation for going through the Panama Canal is significant. It isn’t just a pitch up and line up thing. We hired a canal agent almost two months before our transit and had to send a ton of boat and crew documents to him for canal transit application. You need to arrive at least a week earlier for canal inspection and have your boat measured etc. Arabella unfortunately was classified in the big boat category meaning that we would need a pilot on board who helps direct the Captain and costs significantly more. Fortunately with a little persuasion I managed to convince the inspector to remeasure Arabella and remarkably we were just small enough to change to the smaller class. Nudge nudge wink wink. Life is full of opportunites. You just need to know when to try your luck. With the change we saved a fortune and also only get an advisor to board the boat and we get the full Panama crossing experience.
We had requested to “Nest up” with Dragonfly. This term refers to rafting up with another boat to go through. Simply put, the old canal is 30m wide and it is not efficient to send one boat through at a time and by nesting the boats up they are able to push more boats through each day. Luckily for us we were nested alone with Dragonfly and did not have another boat on the other side. We were all so very excited and prepared multiple angles to capture the footage. We sent Simon up our mast to install a GoPro and Delphine and Little Alex planned all the different camera angles. It was all very exciting and strangely I felt a little nervous.
But before we dive straight in, here are a few facts and figures about the canal. On May, 4, 1904 a Frenchman named Ferdinand De Lesseps proposed to build a canal connecting the Atlantic too the Pacific Ocean. His idea was to carve a canal through the mountains to sea level using cheap slave labour from Africa and the Caribbean mostly. His dream was never realised because of a variety of challenges such as deadly mosquitoes, terrible landslides and granite rock which was brutally hard. After a few years they ran out of money and thousands of people had died. Sadly Ferdinand De Lesseps project failed and after a couple years the Americans (with an extremely vested interest which would cripple Panama for years) decided to take on the challenge of making the Panama Canal. Another engineer, Philippe Bunau-Varilla who was previously interested in the canal realised the Americans were carrying on with the project but using a locks system instead of digging a channel to sea level. He offered to help and was commissioned to complete the canal. After xxx years the canal was finally completed. There are 6 locks (3up and 3down). 48 miles wide and 27m in elevation. 25,000 People died building the canal and it took 10 years. That is how the Panama Canal was built. (Paragraph written by Arabella and Alex)
The first half of the crossing takes you from Colon city on the Atlantic side up Gatun Lock (a series 3 different locks) into the giant Gatun Lake. Not a long passage but our first ever. The locals have a words for first-timers and they call us J-Boys. Not sure the reason but I guess it is slight derogatory. We had arranged two line-handlers and Dragonfly had also arranged two line handlers. We had Mario and Junior and Dragonfly had Jose x 2. They would be staying with us all the way through and thank goodness they were super cool guys and actually made the journey more fun.
At 4:30pm with our advisor (Edgar) finally came onboard and with our two line handlers, we rafted up to Dragonfly just before the first Lock. The process of rafting is fairly straight forward. It simply means we tie our two boats together to essentially make one. But because of Arabella’s size essentially I would be driving both boats through. Just a little extra to make me nervous. We would be sharing the Lock with Juliana, a 161m container ship. She would go in first and we would follow behind. When we were fully secured they would close the doors behind us and fill the lock with water and bring us up. Seems straightforward I guess. The problem is that there are currents, wind and this new experience of driving with another 18 ton boat tied to the side of Arabella. Luckily we have some pretty big engines and I soon realised that if I just drive with my starboard (the side closest to Dragonfly), we would actually feel remarkably like one boat.
Entering your first lock is actually very nerve wrecking. You see the scrapes and bumps along the over 100 year old walls and wonder what happened. The size of the vessels around you are massive. Bigger than a shopping mall. You realise just how small you are. When we were entering it felt like there wouldn’t be any space left for us because Juliana seems to take up the whole Lock but when you finally push your little boat in you realise there is enough space. This went surprisingly smooth and we finally secured our lines and basically I get to switch off for a few minutes whilst the Lock fill up and our lines are secure. Or so I thought. Not so fast Captain. The next challenge was watching the line handlers tightening the lines as we rise up. There is no relaxing, just pure focus. I really didn’t want to be the guy who sank his boat in the Panama Canal and caused a worldwide crisis. Seems dramatic but honestly those were my thoughts.
When you are up, they open the gates in front of you and you watch the big ship sail through. His huge engines push lots of wash back onto your boat and you feel your boat shuddering. Not to mention the new set of currents you are now about to experience. When she is far enough away they release your lines and you need to drive forward to the next lock. Once again staring to move your boat with another boat tied to the side gives a huge pull to the side the boat is tied on. But luckily my trick of only using the Starboard engine seemed to work like a dream. It was evening time and the sun had just set. Honestly it was magical., When we finally exited the 3rd lock we entered the Gatun Lake which was actually the largest man made lake when it was built and is 27m above sea level. All the ships travelling on the southward passage would spend the night here either anchored or tied up to the mooring ball like we were. We were having so much fun that Dragonfly and us stayed rafted whilst we tied up to the buoy. We had read up about this evening and were all terribly excited. You are not allowed to swim in the lake because of the crocodiles but you can imagine that this would never stop us. After securing all the lines and the boats for the night, Simon, Alex and I jumped onto the huge buoy we were tied onto and drank a couple of beers. And after building up a little dutch courage we jumped in.
Such a weird feeling. None of us had been in fresh water for years. The whole experience was surreal and beautiful. A memory I will always cherish. The sudden realisation that Arabella was higher above sea level than ever before and that she was in fresh water for the first time in her life. I suddenly had the urge to flush all my boat systems with fresh water. So on came everything. Generators, AC, sea water pumps etc. Everything that is exposed to the sea water all the time. Not sure if it is a good thing or not but it sure felt like a good idea.
Sadly we also learned that the advisor dedicated to Dragonfly on day 2 had cancelled and we tried everything to find another one. The repercussion was that they would have to stay back and wait for a new advisor. 24hrs on the mooring ball and nothing to do, To make matters worse the kids would be split up and their Panama Canal project would be disjointed. Well there was nothing that could be done. Not even a little African underhanded payments could change the status. So as morning came we needed to say goodbye to Dragonfly. Luckily for my girls, Naomi from Dragonfly came with us so the girls could continue their project.
At 0800 the next morning our new advisor came onboard Arabella and we said good bye to Dragonfly for the day and headed for the downward passage to the Pacific Ocean. It was a long trip across the lake before we got near the Locks and actually only approached the first lock around 2pm. I was not feeling my best after a very festive evening the night before and to make matters worse, our new advisor was a big fella who sat at the helm station right against me while I drove the boat the whole way. The conversation was very limited and I was both bored and exhausted.
Because we were now all alone, and not having Dragonfly alongside us we needed to man all four corners of Arabella in the locks but we only had 2 line handlers. So it was up to Big Alex and Apple/Delphine to man the other two,. Luckily we had all had a little experience on the way up so it wasn’t too bad. A few hairy moments on the first one but generally a pretty slick operation.
The sequence had also changed and now we were no longer entering the lock behind a huge ship. In this version we entered first and another huge ship entered behind us. We also had another MASSIVE car carrier ship alongside us in the next door brand new lock. The challenge going down is you enter a full lock with all the windage effecting the boat. When going up you enter an empty lock which is ultimately completely sheltered from the wind. This would have been so much easier with bow-thrusters but sadly Arabella doesn’t have any. So as we drifted in very slowly we had very little steerage and the luckily we glided quite comfortably into position. Once tied up the water is released and the boat starts to go down pretty quick. It is imperative that the line handlers (Alex/Apple/Delphine) need to ease the lines as we go down or else all sorts of bad things would happen. Well we had no problem and sooner than we could say ahoy we were down and heading for the next Lock. It all seems so simple but woe was it exhilarating. A truly once in a lifetime experience and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous a few times. It is easy helming your boat in wide open waters but once you start being squeezed into tight spaces surrounded by HUGE ships it can become a little intimidating. Not to mention we normally feel like the big boat.
The next 2 locks were uneventful and we finally entered the Pacific. Whoopies were yelled by all and we were jumping up and down. It has been 18 months since we set out and we have said goodbye to the Mediterranean, Ionian, Tyrrhenian, Atlantic and the Caribbean. And the Pacific has always been my absolute dream.
I will always remember the whole passage but day one nested up to Dragonfly will remain extraordinary.
Next episode will be about the extraordinary city of Panama and the joys on the Pearl Islands.