Friday, June 4 1999 - Panama Canal

G'day fellow travelers,

We have overnight exchanged the idyllic surroundings of yesterday for the somewhat less attractive view of Puerto Christobal. Concrete and cranes now cover the horizon. The weather is similarly depressing, cloudy and gray or overcast with rain showers on and off all day.

We are anchored, together with several other boats, in a small bay near the main harbor about 5km away from the Panama Canal. Huge container ships and tankers pass regularly by heading into the canal and the pilot boats have been buzzing about all day long


Docks at the entrance to Panama Canal

We are awaiting our turn to cross the ‘great divide’ and enter the Pacific. Fortunately for us, our position in the queue is secure. We have already had the pilot on board to explain the details of the whole manoeuvre to us. There are three locks at this end and we shall be squeezed in together with one of the larger container ships.

The whole manoeuvre is quite complicated requiring split second timing and very nifty work with the lines.

At least 5 people are required to man the lines. As far as we can tell at the moment we will be attached to a tug, which, in turn, is attached to the lock side. This arrangement is by far the safest for us, since once we are attached to the tug, and the lock gates close, we do not have to worry about letting lines in or out as the water streams into the lock.

The rest of the day has been spent catching up on our respective work. We have had an engineer onboard repairing the fuel centrifuge - Trevor has been busy with that all day, and it is now in working order again.

That’s really all there is to report for today, but to make up for the brevity of this report we have updated the science page, with an article about the Kuna Indians.

More tomorrow

Janet