Panama Canal - Una Vez Mas (one more time)

Simon and I took a bus over to Panama City to kill a little time. Found this really cool bed and breakfast in a high rise penthouse.

Not a bad view at all.

Here is a building that makes a lot of sense.

Nice view of the Gulf of Panama and the Pacific Ocean. We'll be passing this way soon on Jungle.

Now the story on Panama City is that all these high rises are built with laundered drug money. Well there you go, nice to know that all that pot money is being put to good use.

At street level things are starting to heat up. Busy place. The next day, it's back to Jungle and get ready to come through the canal.

And I mean get ready! When I returned from the little sojourn into Panama City, I was told by our agent J.C. that we leave the next morning - Tuesday. I was originally told Thursday. No señor, Tuesday and if you can't leave then it may be next Monday. We're leaving Tuesday. Here we are just outside the Gatun Locks letting this tanker pass. We'll be pulling in behind this guy.

We are ready to go. The guy in the foreground is our pilot - Hamid. Nice guy.

By the time we get into the locks, night has rolled in. We go through these locks and immediately hook a right turn to tie off on a mooring in Gatun Lake and mke our way through the canal beginning at 6:30 AM sharp.

Once in the locks we raft off to a big ketch.

Turns out to be a bunch of American college kids who spend a year on board taking classes and sailing the world. Not a bad curriculum, wish they had that when I was in college. It would have made those 7 years go by quickly.

It's a new day and we motor through the canal.

This is our new pilot, Fernando. Also a good guy. The canal water is muddy from all the dredging they are doing. It's a constant process to keep the canal and ships flowing.

Here is Simon setting up a group photo.

Smile! That's Fernando, Deborah, Simon, Carla and Craig. We met them at the marina and they volunteered to line handle for us. You need to have 4 line handlers on board to manage the boat as it goes up and down the locks. They were great to have on board.

You get a better view of us in the locks. These are the Mira Flores locks on the way down to the Pacific.

Hey Simon, try to chill bro while you handle those lines - good job!

What's this, another team meeting? We had one side tied off to another boat all the way through, so Craig and Carla had plenty of free time.

Heading into a new lock.

This is one of the shore side line handlers. They walk along holding the "catch" line until Jungle is moved into position, then the pull in the bigger line attached to Jungle and tie off on the wall. The boat line handler then feeds the line out as the boat goes down or pulls it in as the boat goes up.

Here you see a catamaran and monohull rafted off together and you see the lines connecting them to the side. We are almost all the way down on the way out to the Pacific.

A view of the gates closing behind us

I'm providing a much needed service. I'm pointing out which way to the Pacific. Impressive, no?

And we are out. And we are in a bit of a rain storm. We've dropped everyone off, fueled up and are now heading 450 miles out to sea. We are heading for the Costa Rican nature preserve - Isla del Coco. It is in our route plan to Zihuatanejo, Mexico. A total trip encompassing about 10 days of sailing.

Rains subside and its pretty nice out there.

A picture of Simon taking a picture of me. We know how to have fun on Jungle.

Arriving Isla del Coco.

It's a pretty spectacular place.

Lots of annual rainfall makes it very green.

Unfortunately, we ar e told by the park ranger we cannot go on the island since we don't have the proper Costa Rica paperwork. Bummer. We decide to swim around the boat. Simon suggests we swim over to that island to check out the Hammerhead Shark population that this island is famous for (google it, you'll see). Gee Simon, I need to change the engine oil. I'm going to end the blog here for now - more to come soon. Greatnews: Jenée is coming to Zihuatanejo - Buenas!