crossing the panama canal, for the first time

we decided to prepare all the canal paperwork ourselves instead of using an agent, and therefore save over 500 dollars (which we can use to pay the canal fees).... for this reason we helped a friend bring his 50 ft. gulf star sailboat from the pacific to the atlantic and gain experience to then do it ourselves. we left bocas on january 26 by bus to panama city; there we waited a few days at the balboa yacht club on board of their sailboat tabasco and then, we crossed the canal on january 30 and 31. we crossed the miraflores and pedro miguel locks the first day, and spent the night at the gatun lake in a beautiful and calm anchorage next to huge freighters. on the next day we crossed the last set of locks; gatun; and we exit the canal in colon, on the atlantic side. we spent two nights in shelter bay marina in colon and then sailed back on tabasco for 30 hours to bocas del toro.




the crossing itself is an experience; all vessels must have 4 line handlers on board to manage the lines on each end of the boat. all these people plus the canal advisor, the boat’s captain and whatever additional crew is on board need to be fed at all times. that was part of my duties on this first “learn how to cross trip”. esteban and i were line handlers and we also were in charge of the kitchen and generally helped with whatever was needed on board.




panama was part of colombia but when colombia rejected US plans to build a canal, because they wanted more money than what was offered, the americans supported a revolution that led to the independence of panama in 1903 and signed a treaty with the newly independent country to build the canal. Nowadays the management of the canal has been turned over by the US to the panamanians and even though the canal has continued to operate, the facilities and constructions surrounding the canal zone have not been kept in the same good condition. we heard many stories of the difference of management and how it used to be very efficient and now is not. currently a vessel can request to go center chamber only to be placed against one of the walls or along side another vessel at the end. vessels can also be scheduled to cross in one day and in the middle plans may change, just as it happened to us when we crossed.

at the end the experience was a good one, and after having done it once we are not afraid to do it again with puerto seguro. in fact we now believe is not as complicated as we had thought.