Just about to head into the Caribbean


After 9 days at anchor in La Playita anchorage being tossed around constantly by freighters' wake, pilot boats' wake and just about everyone else who wanted to make the cheapskate yachties unconfortable we got our clearance to go through the canal. We found 3 line handlers to help us, one person per 'corner' line of the boat. A couple we met in the anchorage Sherrell and Eric on the SV Saranah and Jim from SV Gem. They were such good workers and obviously enjoyed the experience as much as we did.

It was a very long day, we got up at 0430 hrs, met with our 'advisor' who came aboard at 0630, locked in to the first lock at 0900, locked out at about 1800 hrs and dropped off our advisor Ivan at 1900 on the flats, which are on the other side of the northern Panama channel, headed over to the other side of the channel to hopefully find room in the only marina left standing, Shelter Bay Marina.

We ducked through all of the hazardous material freighters in the dark, but they are lit up pretty well, and then headed straight for the waypoint we had for the entrance to the marina.

On the way we had our second drama of the trip when we ran aground on an underwater hill which showed as 4 meters deep on the charts. Tony gunned the hell out of the engine in reverse and got us off after alot of praying on my part, and then with all eyes on deck and me on radar and c-map found our way to a secure dock inside the marina.

We are just about to leave here now for Cuba, about 900miles. Looks like a good weather window for about a week, but if we do need to stop we can do so at Providencia and again at Grand Cayman.

There is alot more that I can say about Panama and the preparation for the canal crossing and the people we have met on the way. We have just been very busy. I'll have time on this leg to write and save it in documents. We'll post again when we next get internet.

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