Me, go around Cape Horn? Seriously? Do I want to brave roaring high-latitude gales just to earn an earring in my left ear? Um, no!
When Harriet and I decided to trade the Atlantic for the Pacific and, return to NZ after 20 years in the US, we kept the rounding of Cape Horn at the bottom of our cruising bucket list. Especially as there’s a safe, enjoyable, fascinating way to swap the Atlantic for the Pacific – or the Pacific for the Atlantic – and it doesn’t involve an 8,300 nautical mile detour. The Panama Canal, a 47-mile-long journey through history, is a cruising milestone that opens both oceans to longdistance exploration. Life is short, so why not take the shortcut?
LOTS OF HELP
For Kiwi cruisers reaching the canal zone for the first time, as we did in mid-December on our Dolphin 460 catamaran OCEAN (we began our transit from Colon, on the Atlantic side), there’s lots of research and reading to tap into beforehand. Start with historian David McCullough’s 1977 The Path Between the Seas and follow that up with a multitude of books and websites that look at more recent developments, such as the 1977 transfer of the canal from the US to Panama and the 2016 opening of a second set of locks to handle the mammoth Panamax and Neopanamax vessels (up to 366m long, carrying up to 14,000 6.1m containers). While you are waiting your turn to transit, we recommend checking out the Agua Clara Visitor Center in Colon or the Miraflores Visitor Center and the Panama Canal on the Pacific side in Panama City, a modern, cosmopolitan city.
We had a lot of questions about the requirements and mechanics of transiting the canal, such as the official admeasurement of our boat (length, beam, draft, tonnage speed under power, and details about our crew and deck equipment), and the line handlers (Panama Canal Authority-supplied crew, your own crew, or crew from other cruising boats), and the necessary fenders and lines. There’s lot of help available online, such as from the Panama Canal Authority site, and you’ll no doubt meet other cruisers who have done it before. The Panama Canal operates around the clock 365 days a year, and communication about all aspects of the transit in these days of e-mail, texts and WhatsApp is well organised.
SHOULD YOU GET AN AGENT?
How’s your Spanish? As first-timers, we contacted a few cruisers who’d been through the canal previously, and their answer was yes, get an agent for the transit, especially if your command of Spanish is, um, basic. Our agent, Erick Galvez of Centenario Consulting proved invaluable. Eric spoke English well, answered our questions quickly, explained every step of the transit, arranged our canal booking, our admeasurement and line-handlers, and kept us updated as our time slot drew closer, and helped us with non-canal stuff too. The transit requires supplying the right documents to the right government official in the right office at the right time – and given the language barrier (not all that many folks speak English in Panama) there’s a fairly high chance of things getting lost in translation. The cost of this enterprise, including the US$1,500 transit toll, and transit admeasure, security fee, fenders and lines rental, agent service fee, Panama cruising permit, and one line-handler and a pilot/ advisor, came to just over US$2,900.
OUR TRANSIT
Before heading for the canal, we spent about 10 days chasing down boat projects at Shelter Bay Marina, a full-service facility a few miles from the canal entrance. Two cruising friends from our late 1980s cruise through the South Pacific, Karen and Paul Prioleau, joined our boat for the transit, so we needed only one more line-handler. Our agent arranged for Juan, a young man studying to become a canal pilot, to join OCEAN, and a Panama Canal Authority pilot boat met us to drop off Roy, our pilot/advisor, as we approached the first lock. Once we were safely inside Gatun Lock, the bells of the electric locomotives clanged, and the sliding steel sluice gate closed behind us. Ninety-eight-and-a-half million litres of water flooded in, silently lifting OCEAN, the 45-foot powerboat we were rafted to, and an imposing containership, 8.3m above the Atlantic. Our crew was excited: “How cool is this!” Yes, the Panama Canal is very cool – suddenly you find yourself in the middle of amazing history and modern technology.
The rush of water boiling up in the chamber, combined with prop wash from the ship just in front of us, was alarming, but pilot/advisor Roy had positioned OCEAN in the best spot in the lock. It’s safer to be alone, if possible, your lines keeping you in the centre of the lock, or to be rafted to another yacht tied to the wall of the canal; avoid nesting to a tug or alongside the wall. Keep your two bow and two stern lines taut (125-footers [38m] of 7/8” polypropylene, rented from the Panama Canal Authority along with eight round fenders), and be sure to ease the lines to avoid a high upward load that could snap your cleats. We found that the counter-rotating props of our cat’s twin 40-horsepower diesels helped Harriet adjust our position as needed; the prop walk of a monohull’s single screw will require more anticipation by your line-handlers. In any case, your pilot/advisor and local line-handlers are experienced (both Roy and Juan have transited over 1,000 times) with all kinds of boats.
Once released from the three Gatun Locks, most yachts spend the night on an official mooring in Gatun Lake, resuming the transit early the next morning. Swimming from your boat is not allowed, however, due to crocodiles. This shortcut between the seas is also a slash through the jungle; howler monkeys, pint-size creatures swinging through the jungle canopy, let loose a roar that sounds like an eighteen-wheeler, while jaguars and pumas pad through the rainforest. Oh, and if you transit during the May-to-November rainy season, it likely will be pouring: Panama receives 3.66m of annual rainfall. The timing of our one-day transit was a bit unusual, beginning at 0430 and finishing by 1700, so we missed the overnight stay among the crocs and jaguars and howler monkeys. We missed the rain, too.
The rest of the transit was easy. The interoceanic waterway eases into long winding stretches, including cuts through mountain ranges that were won at a tremendous cost in human life – an estimated 25,000 people perished from tropical diseases and industrial accidents during the canal’s 1880 to 1914 construction. Just two final sets of locks, the Pedro Miguel and the Miraflores, and the canal dropped us into the Pacific.
History and politics weigh heavily upon the Panama Canal, but for cruisers the experience is equal parts educational and magical. Over 100 years ago, the ditch was dug with steampowered diggers – and men with shovels. Some of yesteryear’s leading-edge technology, such as the line-handling electric locomotives running on both sides of the locks, is still in place and operating today. The canal’s million-dollar tugboats with omnidirectional propulsion are present-day cutting edge. The eight new Panamax locks are a showcase of engineering and construction; the colossal project consumed 44 million cubic metres of concrete and 192,000 tons of steel reinforcement. The Panama Canal has functioned in spectacular fashion from its opening in 1914.
The transit of the Panama Canal was memorable, a milestone for Harriet, me, and OCEAN. It’s also difficult to sum up. As author David McCullough wrote, “The fifty miles between the oceans were among the hardest ever won by human effort and ingenuity, and no statistics on tonnage or tolls can begin to convey the grandeur of what was accomplished.” For cruisers it is all that, of course – plus it’s a fantastic shortcut. And worthy of an earring in your starboard ear. BNZ
