Transitting the Canal - A Trial Run
Ripple2
Mon 17 Apr 2006 01:12
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Well we are still in Colon waiting to transit the
Canal - our engine is in a million pieces and is getting a complete overhaul as
we discovered that the piston rings have to be replaced. That's what we get for
buying a 30 year old vessel with a 20 year old engine. Still - at least it is
able to be rejuvenated as it is an ever faithful Perkins, at least we have that
going for us...
Here is the story of our first transit of the Canal
- we linehandled for our Norwegian friends Benjamin and Henretta on their 40 ft
boat "Uterus" - so called because they say it is small, damp and cramped and
will give birth to their dream (a circumnavigation)!
  Benjamin and
Henretta
Our first lock
The whole transit took 2 days, we started out at
about 6.30pm and were in the first lock, rafted to 2 other boats by 8.30ish. We
were on the ouside so there was some linehandling fore and aft to be done.
Monkey Fists (knotted rope the size of a cricket ball and about as heavy) tied
to thin line are thrown on board from about fifty feet up, these are attached to
our thick 150 foot lines on board and used to scure the boat to the walls of the
lock. Then as the waters rise ( the first 3 locks are 'uphill') we pull on the
lines to keep them taut. This is the strenuous part of the job, and if you make
a mistake or don't pull up fast enough all the boats skew around - not good.
Anyway we managed to get through without any hitches but it took 2 hours to get
through the first 3 locks. Then we were in Gatun Lake and tied up to a big buoy
for the night.
The Lake is bordered by basically jungle and first
thing the next morning we are woken by the Howler Monkeys which sound like a
cross between Chewbacca and pteredactyls (think Jurassic Park meets Star Wars)
quite an alarm clock. Anyway the Pilot hops on not long after - you have to have
an official Pilot and 4 linehandlers plus the captain. It then took 4 hours to
motor through the lake which is quite scenic, we saw several Howler Monkeys up
in the high branches. It's a bit like koala spotting. We also passed
several SuperTankers coming the other way - the biggest we saw was 976 feet
here's a picture.
  The biggest tanker that
day
Girls up front getting ready for the locks
The last 3 locks are 'down hill' - so we entered
them, tied up to the sides then gradually let the lines out as the water levels
went down, not quite as heavy work as the previous night but you still had to
have your wits about you. Here are some pics inside the locks to give you an
idea.
    So there you have it - after the final
lock at the Pacific side it is about an hour to Balboa where we tied up to a
buoy and left the boat to catch a Taxi back to Colon - a mere 2 hour drive
away.
We will try to take some pictures of our own
transit in a couple of weeks time but there is so much going on that it is hard
to 'focus' on picture-taking.
Hope you all had a Happy Easter - and we'll
hopefully be posting more blogs soon, the next one might be an engine rebuild
one for all the mechanically minded web fans out
there...
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