Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
One cannot stress enough the value of previewing the canal. While awaiting our own date,
we each volunteered as line handlers for different sailboats. In this way, we were able to
familiarize ourselves with canal procedures and consequently felt much less anxious about
our own transit. I highly recommend that sailing couples try to go through individually,
helping different boats on different dates. This exposes you to a greater number of vari-
ables: one trip may see a boat going through the locks rafted up with others, while another
may go through center lock (alone in the middle of the lock), or tied up to a larger vessel
which is made fast to the side wall. This doubles your chances of experiencing the type of
transit that your own boat will ultimately have. Canal authorities are extremely organized,
but they don't announce the lock configuration in advance. Unless you're rushing through
the canal in minimum time, it is usually easy to find boats in Shelter Bay looking for line
handlers, and many crews swap duties to obtain the requisite four line handlers.
Meeting fellow sailors as line handlers was one of the unexpected highlights of the canal
experience for us. We each met wonderful crews when we helped other boats through, and
chance brought us a delightfully international and interesting crew for our own transit.
The first helper we secured was our neighbor in the marina, Sylvia. Together with her hus-
band, Ken, this Japanese grandmother had recently crossed the Pacific nonstop from
Japan to Vancouver in fifty-three days! We also took on Victor, a retired Czech dam en-
gineer with another incredible sailing story. While cruising in Haiti, his small boat went
aground. Before he could float it, the boat was boarded and looted by locals. Threatened
by knives and machetes, Victor jumped overboard and swam to safety, but he lost
everything, and was looking for crew positions on other boats. Rounding out the guest list
on Namani was Hobin, a Canadian ecology student from McGill University who was do-
ing field studies in Panama. Each of our line handlers brought us more than just a pair of
helpful hands: with fascinating stories, insights, and discrete areas of expertise, they
helped make our transit smooth and thoroughly enjoyable.
And the transit itself? We are happy to report that it was mostly uneventful. Namani went
up the three Gatun locks tied to a seventy-five foot sport fishing boat from Louisiana:
after they motored into each lock and made fast to the rough side wall, we would ap-
proach and raft up along their port side. This proved to be the easiest of all configurations,
since our cleats did not have to take the upward strain of long lines made fast to the canal
walls. Our advisor cleverly made up for the difference in our respective hull shapes by
doubling the bumper tires, one on top of another, for a wider buffer. At first, we had some
doubts about the neighboring crew, who seemed more intent on the football game running
on their large screen TV and the kebabs grilling on the aft deck! However, they proved to
be competent, and their vessel absorbed most of the strain caused by the rapidly rising wa-
ter level. The 585-foot cargo ship positioned ahead of us in the same lock posed no
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