Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
All in all, it was a very successful and interesting day. We had literally seen the ropes and
were prepared for when our turn would come.
Exactly four days later, we had our call from the Panama Yacht Club secretary for our
crossing. We had had a canal official come out and measure up the cubic volume of Déjà vu
and were charged around one hundred and fifty dollars, plus twenty dollars for insurance.
The official told us of some incidences where boats had been sunk in the canal, literally
crushed like eggs by other bigger vessels, and that insurance now was compulsory. Details
like this I didn't need to hear as they made me far more nervous than I already was.
As it turned out, our crossing went without a hitch. The only interesting incident was when
sailing in the Gatun Lake: in freshwater, Déjà vu tended to sit lower in the water than in
salt water, allowing water to seep into the cockpit drains which flooded the cockpit sole
with a few inches of lake water. Initially, I had fears of sinking in the lake until I saw what
was actually happening.
We had been warned by the Balboa Yacht Club members that the area where we had
moored after our crossing was pretty shallow, and that the tide was very high. Sure enough,
during the night we heard a soft thudding from the keel and could feel an eerie bumping. By
morning, Déjà vu was almost high and dry lying dramatically on her port side with about
two feet of water below her.
We were faced with a problem. Both Gavin and I desperately needed to use the head, but
with the boat lying on her port side, her starboard side was exposed along with the water
intake and discharge valves of our marine toilet clearly out the water! In short, we could
not use the head. We could row out the long distance to the club, and hopefully they might
be open at this early hour. Murphy's Law affected our decision here.
Luckily it was summer, and warm enough to “swim” around the boat and “examine” her,
now lying stranded like a beached whale. I never told Gavin why I went for an early morn-
ing swim, and he never told me either, but the drifting evidence was all too obvious: when
you gotta go you gotta go.
I had noticed that there was a nasty oil slick along Déjà vu's waterline and, armed with a
bucket of soapy water, both Gavin and I set to wading about scrubbing her clean. A few
hours later she was upright, clean, and floating as befit a queen of the Pacific. We hauled
up anchor and set our sights for the little island of Taboga. Hooray! We were now in the
much anticipated Pacific Ocean, and it was here that we had our greatest adventures and
where the fondest of our cruising memories were made.
