Friday January 30 – We’re here! We have arrived in Panama City, 1727 miles from Ixtapa, 1367 additional miles from San Diego, and 1375 miles more from Seattle, 4469 miles in total! We’ve nabbed a berth in the crowded marina on the Pacific side thanks to the agent Rod had the foresight to hire to expedite our canal crossing. Now we’re waiting to find out when we will be assigned our slot for the canal crossing, most likely tomorrow or Sunday.

We arrived here Wednesday afternoon in the same brisk conditions that made that final day’s leg across the Gulf of Panama a bit challenging. The late afternoon light and moisture laden atmosphere combined to make Panama City’s big city skyline glow ethereally on the horizon like the Emerald City of Oz – silver skyscrapers, the graceful Bridge of the Americas stretching across to verdant hills, ships and boats coming and going from all angles. So many ships, each one represented by the AIS on AVATAR’s electronic navigation screens as a green triangle, that the green markers were clumped so thickly they looked more like a land mass than vessels at anchor. The shipping lanes have actual traffic control, on the Flamenco channel, just like airplanes at an airport.

Great numbers of birds were in feeding frenzies, pelicans falling out of the sky in their kamikaze dives and flocks of seagulls thrashing the wave tops chasing after schools of baitfish trapped near the surface by schools of larger fish attacking from below, all in dinner mode. It was an awesome photo opportunity except AVATAR was bucking her way head on through the choppy waves, so that of the 600-700 photos I took in burst mode, only the very luckiest ones offer even a semblance of sharp focus. So my apologies for technical imperfections – these are offered in the spirit of sharing the scene, if not photographic expertise!

We spent our first night rolling in the anchorage at the entrance to the (completely full) marina, but our agent in Panama secured us a spot for the next few nights, so now we have power, air conditioning, Internet, restaurants, taxis, etc. all conveniently at hand. Security seems to be a consideration; all the shops and offices for the marina are kept locked and are opened by remote when we rattle their doors. A couple of marines in camouflage are stationed nearby, and security guards man the gateways. The guidebooks advise care in not straying off the beaten track of the tourist friendly areas of town.

There are a lot of logistics involved in going through the canal, sharing the way with huge ocean-going freighters, cruise ships, tugs, sightseeing boats, other yachts, and alligators (the only ones to get a free pass – local joke). We definitely thought it was the better part of valor to employ an agent to handle the fees and paperwork, both for customs and the canal, as well as provide extra equipment including ropes and bumpers, and also the extra labor force required to go through. Roy Bravo of Emmanuel Agencies came highly recommended, and we were exceedingly pleased when we met him in the marina to observe how seamlessly he was expediting our visit.

We have officially been assigned the number 6009305 which will be AVATAR’s permanent Panama Canal ship identification number, in case we ever pass this way again! For transit we will require four experienced line handlers plus a licensed pilot to make the transit, which involves a series of rising locks from the Pacific side, a 48 mile cruise along the canal waterway and across Lake Gatun (carved out of the former Chagres River valley through  the mountains – an epic task), and then a descent through the series of locks on the Caribbean side back to sea level. The trip should take most of the day, possibly even longer. This 48 mile ‘shortcut’ saves 4,000 miles of ocean travel circumnavigating South America to arrive in the same place!

There are three channels through the locks, a central channel and the two side channels. Roy advises that to assure a daytime passage we should opt for the center, for which we are eligible as long as we exceed 65′ in boat length (we will be officially measured today by canal representatives – from the tip of AVATAR’s anchor on the bow to the brackets of the swim step on her stern), and are able to maintain a speed of 10 knots (not a problem). We are to be rafted to the side of another vessel within the locks. It would have been a devastating disappointment to be assigned a night slot for the transit, arriving on the far side at one a.m. in the morning! No scenery and no photo ops for what most likely will be a once in a lifetime experience.

While we wait, AVATAR will get a good freshwater washdown to get rid of the salt, and we’ll fit in some sightseeing as well as a celebratory dinner out in old town Panama.

More to come!