This is it! The BIG DAY! We transit the Panama Canal!
Got up at ten to four and ate breakfast. A few minutes before five, two line handlers arrived. The Transit Advisor got here a few minutes after five, and five minutes later, the other two line handlers arrived. We were delighted to see that one of them was Harper; we'd felt bad about not using his services after he'd been so nice to us. So now everything's perfect.
Here's the game plan: we will tie to a motor yacht that will tie to a tugboat that will tie to the wall. So we have absolutely the best position and are least likely to sustain damage. The three of us will follow the container ship "Torrens" into the lock.
The Transit Advisor is a pleasant young man of 34, who speaks English fluently but with a heavy accent that makes him difficult to understand. He's climbing the career ladder and expects to be a pilot in five years.
The line handlers are all top-notch. They know what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. When they're not working, they stay aft out of the way. They're worth every nickel of the $50 we're paying them.
The Advisor had us start out slowly for the first lock, Mira Flores. We went under the high bridge that crosses the channel and is part of the Pan-American Highway. We saw the Torrens coming up behind us. It soon passed us and entered the lock ahead of us.
We entered the lock and waited for the tug to tie to the right side of the lock and the Calipsos to tie to the tug. Then we moved up and tied to the port side of Calipsos. The huge gates swung slowly shut behind us, and the water level began rising.
In due course of time, we were floating about 30 feet above sea level. The gates in front of us opened, and the Torrens moved forward to the next lock. The three of us untied and moved forward individually to the next lock, where the entire procedure was repeated.
We crossed Mira Flores Lake, entered Pedro Miguel Lock, and rose to the highest level, 85 feet above sea level.
Next came a long stretch with no locks, so the crew could relax. I fed them a mid-morning snack of hard-boiled eggs and doughnuts plus a cold soda. They gobbled it down eagerly.
We went through the famous Gaillard Cut and crossed the Continental Divide. There was a plaque on the side of the canal at the Divide.
Roy told me to take some Ritz crackers out to the line handlers. I didn't want to because it was almost time for lunch, but he kept insisting, so I finally did. They ate a few, but didn't really want them.
We entered the 23-mile-long Gatun Lake, and I fixed lunch--big bowls of spaghetti and meatballs, corn, and pork and beans, plus cold sodas, and cookies for dessert. Guess they had enough to eat; I was going to fix more, but they declined.
The weather was great--cloudy enough to keep things cool (that is, not scorching), but no rain.
The other boats had long since disappeared way ahead of us. The Advisor kept urging us to go faster; if we could rendezvous with the others at Gatun Lock by 3 o'clock, we could complete the transit in one day. Most sailboats take two days. We were already at 2200 RPM and making hull speed of 6 1/2 knots. We couldn't go any faster with the engine, so Roy put out the headsail, and that gave us another half knot. We flew over the lake at 7 knots!
Around 2:30, we saw the Torrens waiting to enter the lock. Here the order would be reversed: the three small boats would enter the lock first, with the container ship bringing up the rear.
The Torrens started moving forward, and our Advisor urged us to move ahead of it.
Gatun Lock goes down the 85 feet in three steps. There are strong currents towards the right wall, so the tug tied to the left wall. The Calipsos moved up to tie to the starboard side of the tug but messed up! They got the bow tied, but the stern was caught by the current and swung out into the middle of the channel, so Roy had to stop and wait for them to get straightened out. In the meantime, the Torrens was coming up behind us, breathing down our tailpipe! By the time the Calipsos got its stern tied to the tug so we could move ahead, we were almost directly under the wide, towering bow of the Torrens! That is definitely the closest I ever want to come to a container ship. We were all sweating it, including the Advisor.
Roy, of course, did a flawless job of bringing the Jofian up to the starboard side of Calipsos. Our bow and stern were tied, zip zip, the Torrens stopped advancing, the gates closed, and the water level began dropping.
When we'd gone down about 28 feet, the gates ahead of us opened, we untied and moved forward into the next section of the lock, which also had a strong current. Would you believe, the Calipsos did the same stupid thing again! Again Roy had to stop and wait while the Torrens advanced towards our stern. And then the whole performance was repeated a third time in the third section of the lock! Does this guy never learn? Anyway, thanks to Roy, we made it through the canal safe and sound. The Advisor congratulated Roy for his excellent job.
A pilot boat came up to take the Transit Advisor ashore. He'll be driven by car back to his home in Balboa.
The line handlers directed us to the Balboa Yacht Club, where we tied to the fuel dock. We paid them their well-earned wages plus $1.75 for bus fare to Balboa, and they departed.
We dood it! We went through the Panama Canal! I felt like Queen of the May, with nothing to do but kick back and enjoy. And rustle up a little grub.
Shortly after we tied up, a man came by with a note saying we had to give a $50 deposit to the club bartender. Roy did so.
No comments:
Post a Comment