Our turn for the canal came on the 14th. of April.
Were we nervous? You bet!
We went through with a catamaran and a yacht. This meant rafting up
together
before each series of locks, with the catamaran in the middle.
We are going to follow this ship into the first lock at Gatun.
The catamaran is doing most of the driving, using the engine in each hull
to
keep us going straight. The catamaran is French, the yacht on the
other side
from Finland.
Safely inside the first lock at Gatun, the raft is in the middle of the
lock,
with long lines from each outside yacht to the walls of the
lock.
That's our advisor in the red shirt.
The water comes boiling in.
Forward in to the next lock, with Joe from "Dreamcatcher" handling the bow
line.
Into the Gatun lakes for the night, passing the construction works for the
new
locks.
Glenn prepares to tie us up to the mooring for the night.
Next lock there were no ships with us, just a couple of tour boats taking
tourists
through the canal.
Going down.....
The man on the lock side sends across the 'monkey', a small weighted
bag
with a long thin line attached. The monkey is just out of the
picture, top left.
Glenn catches the monkey, and ties the line to one of
our long heavy lines, to be pulled back to the lock side.
We covered our solar panel in cushions in case the
monkey landed on it.
Our day 2 advisor
Glenn and Lyn fron Steel Sapphire
were our line handlers
View of the Pedro Miguel lock, with our raft entering.......
....and exiting on the other side. We are on the right of the
raft. The pictures
were taken from the visitor centre by our friends from Adelaide on Connect
4.
View of the Pedro Miguel lock with the Centennial Bridge in the
background.
In the Pacific, without a scatch! Everything went very smoothly.
The Bridge of The Americas looked a little familiar!
Tyres and ropes piled on the deck ready to return to our agents at the
dock
at Balboa Yacht Club.
A strange looking Sea Shepherd boat...by the look of the logo they are
now
into saving Iguanas.
The new biodiversity museum on the Flamenco causeway. Our anchorage
is
on the other side.
