Panama Canal 2

ANGEL
David & Valerie Allen
Sat 20 Feb 2010 13:20
09:15.53 N  79:54.25 W

Thursday, February 11- Friday, February 12, 2010.

No sooner were we anchored at La Playita, than I was bussed back to Shelter Bay again to be a line handler aboard RAYLAH.  I was really looking forward to transitting while observing the entire journey.  Last trip I spent a lot of time cooking and seeing that the crew was hydrated, in addition to line handling and taking over the wheel when Dave wanted to take a break.  Little did I know that, after the plans were changed at least twenty times, we would be the centre boat in the raft (no one else had both bow thrusters working).  Being a Centre Boat Line Handler has to be the easiest job on the planet!  Tim, the skipper, Jeremy's best friend, had always dreamed of going through the Panama canal since he had opened his first geography text in school.  He is also a professional photographer and videographer.   He took miles of footage of the passage and will edit it, add music and perhaps poetry to the mix and will send me a copy in Canada.  

We had such a wonderful time!  Our lockage was delayed so long (three hours) that we had the opportunity of passing through the Gatun Locks at night!

Here are a couple more photos from this second transit.

 

A very busy lockage at Miraflores- eight boats at once!  The excitement really increased when a small freighter decided to pass us to starboard- while we were already in the narrow canal.  Our adviser was superb in guiding us to the wall without touching it.



This was the view from our stern!  Ad this was just a SMALL ship.