At the entrance of Panama Canal

ANIMA
Manuel Ribeiro
Sun 11 Mar 2018 03:55

09:22N 079:57W

 

Crossing Panama Canal requires a significant amount of planning and preparation. On arrival at Colón, on the atlantic side of the Canal, we stayed at Shelter Bay marina to go through the paperwork, boat inspection by the Canal authorities and then wait for the passage date.

 

A totally unexpected encounter was about to happen… We tied the boat to the dock and, as we were walking towards the marina reception, Pedrinho suddenly said: “Look, we have here a boat from Lisbon…”. I looked and…  which boat do I see?

 

ENIGMA!!

Enigma was my previous boat, also a Lagoon catamaran (420 Hybrid), which was sold in 2013 to an interested buyer from Australia, whom I never met as the sale was done through a dealer. Now, 5 years later, the same owner decided to take Enigma to Australia and destiny made us meet there, on this narrow passage linking the oceans… They had arrived in Colón a week earlier and were patiently waiting for their transit date, on the 8th March. I finally met Peter and we were immediate friends.

 

Anima was planned to transit the canal on the 17th March, so we organized our time for the next 2 weeks. Isabel and Pedrinho returned to São Paulo, and Zé arrived from Lisbon, to complete the crew for the longest passage of the circumnavigation: Panama to Polynesia.

 

A few days later, our transit schedule was updated and we got an earlier date for the transit: 8th March. That meant we would be crossing with Enigma. Another incredible coincidence!

 

We bought provisions for the next 2-3 months (the next serious supermarket will be in Papeete, some 7000km away) and managed to store it all on board. We met some friends at the marina (whom we had met in previous ports) and made some new friends as well. The community of people on a circumnavigation is large and has a lot in common. As all follow similar routes, our paths are bound to cross.

 

For the transit day, we needed 5 persons on board to deal with all the manoevers. Two of our new friends, Olivier and Adrian, who are french and travelling with their families in separate boats towards Tahiti, kindly offered to be “line handlers”. The date is approaching fast!