8th Feb', 2010

Gatun Lake

We have just spent the night in Gatun Lake and awoke to the sound of Howler Monkeys, Jonathan also thought he saw a crocodile.  We did see a very small one yesterday caught between the locks and trying to swim against the very strong current.

We had huge fun yesterday 'locking up' with large warps.  The guys on the side of the lock, which was very high above us, threw a 'monkey fist' down making sure it doesn't hit any of us as they have been known to knock you out if you get in the way, we then tie the warps to the monkey fist string and they haul up the warps and we tighten them up on the deck around our cleats, then it is a matter of slackening and tightening to keep the yacht steady as the lock fills with water from underneath causing quite a lot of turbulance, we also had a bit of turbulance which sent our aft fairly close to the walls caused by a ship just ahead of us going aft a little.  We were in a raft of three yachts, we were on the port side of a Cat' with another yacht on the starboard side of it.  We had three locks to go through up to the lake.  It was facinating and huge fun.

Our pilot came on board at 5.30 this morning and we have been heading across the lake since.  It is an artificial lake made for the supply of the canal and dredged for huge ships as well.  We are now making our way down towards the Galliard Cut and the first of the 'down' locks at Pedro Miguel.

Photos show all the 'Aqualunies' at lunch in Portobello where there is a very old fort to protect against the likes of Francis Drake who is buried in a lead coffin out at sea of Portobello.  The Aqualunies on board at the moment are Fenella and John Boxhall, Mike and Amanda Pike, Allan Dobson and of course J and I.  The 'photos of the locks show the gate closing behind us and then when the lock is full before we move into the next lock behind the ship ahead of us.