Northbound Traffic

Shows Copernicus due at the 1st lock at 08:51

Line Hander #1 Extrordinaire

Ben for SV Letitgo Vancouver Canada

Line Handler #2 and #3

Valerie and Laurent, also from SV Letitgo.

Laurent Behaving

...... for once.

Skipper, Bryan

Pilot Boat with Adivisor

The advisor stays on board to guide the skipper and crew through the transit.

Pilot Boat

We were scheduled to have him board at 7am. Many others have been kept waiting from 30 minutes to 6 hours.... our guys were early by 10 minutes!

Roy, Our Advisor Boarding Copernicus

This is done as we maintain a few knots speed, the pilot boat comes along side and the advisor boards, it was calm that morning, but it can be rough.

Downtown Panama

behind the palm lined causeway from the anchorage to town.

Roy and Me

and Puente de las Américas

We'll be sharing the first 3 locks with her.

When the Frieghters Are Too Big

... for the canal, they offload onto a train that transports the containers to the Atlantic side and reload onto another frieghter. The expansion is underway, with revised ETA in 2015. Currently freighters pay from $250,000 to $500,000 per transit, the superdupers will be paying about $1M. We paid $1875 and should be getting about $800 back.

Panama City Docks

Fantastic Crew Ben and Valerie

and Puente de las Américas.

Puente de las Américas

Waiting

We were to raft up to SV Wind Spirit from Portland OR, but they were told to pick up their advisor at 10am when it should have been 7am, like us. I called them to give them a heads up, they pulled a rabbit out of the hat, we made the lock on time. Wow, they are amazing. In the meantime we picked up this mooring to wait for them.

SV Wind Spirit

and here they are!

On Our Way to Miraflores Locks

Sitting lower in fresh water

Copernicus and Wind Spirit

Miraflores Locks

we're going into the one on the right.

First Lock

We'll be going up so will start at the bottom of the chamber.

2nd Chamber, Miraflores Locks

doors closing behind us so that the chamber can be filled.