Lat: 09:15.6 N: Long: 79:55 W

20^th February     Gatun Lake

Gatun Lake, where we spent last night, having passed through the first set of locks, was created by damning the River Chagres. It is home to a wide variety of wildlife including some fairly large alligators, although we didn’t spot any!

Roy had gone home late last night but returned at 6.30am, just as the sun was rising, ready for the 31 mile trip to the second set of locks. En route we found a tiny window of opportunity in which to fly our spinnaker – much to Alan’s delight – so now he is hoping that someone on one of the other Oysters will have taken a decent photo.

There were certainly plenty of great photo opportunities, and one video moment not to be missed was when someone on board Stiarna began playing the bagpipes as we approached the lock.

Arriving at the Pedro Miguel lock we again rafted up with Spent (to be entertained by the effervescent Paul Ducker from Babe, who had also made the passage on his own boat two days previously) and Purusha.  It was quite bizarre and spine-tinglingly wonderful to hear again, the skirl of the bagpipes from deep down in the bottom of the lock!

We exchanged numerous text messages with our sadly missed mate Richard Smith (of the missing index finger tip) and daughter Laura back in not-so-sunny Mersea. They gave us a running commentary as to if/when/where they could see us on the live PanCanal CCTV.  The crowds of people looking down into the locks from the observation towers must have thought we were all mad, waving and jumping about in what we hoped was the right direction for the cameras – but then again, I suppose there must be a lot of excitable yachties passing through all the time.

From there we had a pleasant motor down to La Playita where we’ll be anchored for a few days. It is a short taxi ride into Panama City where Alan hopes to pick up some spare parts, we need to do MORE provisioning and I need to see an osteopath!