Crossing over to the Pacific

Since Sunday things seem to have happened in a rush. We were told that we would get through the canal on the 19^th but still needed to phone in to see if there were any changes to the schedule. Come Sunday night and we were told that we would be going through the canal the next day. From there we were flat out reorganising the boat for three more people to sleep as well as doing shopping for food for the trip and sorting out the boat. We left the anchorage at 2:30 and went around to the flats to wait for our pilot/advisor. He was due at 5:00pm but they do sometimes move you earlier so we had to be there ready and waiting. Our advisor arrived on time and we headed off to the first of the locks. As we approached the first lock we rafted up with two other yachts. We entered the first lock behind a small ship and tied up. It was still light and was amazing how fast the lock filled. The currents are incredible and the water boils all around the yacht. We repeated this exercise another two times as we climbed up to the Gatun Lake.  From the top lock we motored about a mile to where we all tied up to two large buoys. We spent the night here and at six the next morning our advisor for the trip across the lake and down the other side arrived. The lake is full of islands covered in rainforest. We took a shortcut called the “Banana Cut” which goes through between lots of the islands. It takes around 3-4 hours to motor through to the first of the locks on the other side. The first lock is stand alone after which you have to motor over the Miraflores Lake to the next two locks. While waiting to enter the next lock a large crocodile swam by. It was the only one we saw on the lake but they are pretty common. By 1:00pm we exited the last lock and were finally in the Pacific Ocean. After dropping off our advisor we headed all the way down to the sea and around the causeway where we anchored with a great view of Panama City. Roy and Margaret that came with us as line handlers returned to Colon and the next day Che who helped us as well went back. We went into town with Che and walked around the old city. The next day we returned to Colon by bus to line handle for Roy and Margaret on Barnstorm. The first day was long as we were supposed to leave the flats at 3:30pm but finally got away at 7:30. We only reached the lake at 1:15am. The advisors arrived at 6:00am the next morning, so all in the trip was very tiring. We have been through twice now and are now focussing on the road ahead to Galapagos. We will try updating photos when we get a good wifi connection Till then....