Our Panama Canal transit date has been set for the afternoon of Saturday, May 14. We are scheduled to transit around 3pm with 2 other boats called 'Puffin' and 'Scila'. As we are the larger yacht our position will be in the middle and the other 2 yachts will be tied to our yacht on either side. We have hired 3 local line handlers to help with the ropes. They will stay on our yacht overnight as it will take a day and a half to get from the Atlantic (Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific Ocean. We overnight in Lake Gatun before crossing to the Miraflora locks which are technically on the Pacific side. The canal is 80 km in length and around 14,000 vessels pass through the canal every year. The locks are 305 metres long and 33.5 meters wide. The canal has three sets of double locks and between them the ships pass through the artificial lake called Lake Gatun. With the passage of each ship 52 million gallons of fresh water is released into the ocean. Ships pay according to their weight with the average fee around $30,000. The highest amount paid was $200,000 in 2001 by a French cruise ship called 'Infinity' and the lowest paid was $0.36 by Richard Halliburton in 1928 who swam through the canal (gross thought really as it is pretty murky and there are crocodiles along the way). We will be paying an agent around $1,200 to transit the canal plus the line handler and customs fees. There is a live webcam for the locks on the canal which can be viewed at:
http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html
At a guess we will be going through the Gatun Lock at around 5pm on the Saturday afternoon and the Miraflora Lock early on Sunday morning Panama time. We will be the ones panicking and waving frantically no doubt. I have bought a cheap bottle of champagne to celebrate with when we are halfway through! The canal was actually closed this morning as a large ship hit one of the locks and it had to be repaired before re-opening later in the afternoon. This was a relief for us as we didn't really want to be delayed any further than Saturday.
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