Greetings from the "Other Side"

Well, here we are then, safely at anchor in Amador, Panama after a week of horrible headcolds and canal transits....yes, there was more than one of them!
The entire crew (!) of Moonshiner acquired a rather nasty cold virus after the first gathering of the Bluewater rally participants at Shelter Bay Marina leaving us ill (ha ha!!) prepared for the news that we would be the first boat in the first batch of canal transits starting that Sunday 7th Feb......but we left anyway as we had all the documentation ready and willing volunteers to help line handle.

So, we left the marina and motored across to the designated place to pick up our "advisor" who would stay with us until we tied to the buoy in the Gatun Lakes later that evening after the first set of three locks at Gatun which would take us up 90 feet. This was the hard part where the line handlers are required to do some pulling to keep the lines taut though as we were rafted alongside two other boats, there was only a need for four "active" handlers...one at each corner of the raft leaving the other eight doing little but watch. I kept myself busy making drinks etc for everyone and feeling increasingly lousy at the same time.

So far so good and we settled for an early night as we were leaving around 6.30 the next morning for the long motor (30miles or so) to the next set of locks which would take us down to the Pacific. Our second advisor "Victor" arrived next morning and we set off. Now the problems begin!! There were five other boats with us and they all shot off at breakneck speed, well nearly 7 knots anyway leaving us behind! We were only required to maintain 6 knots through the canal but the advisors were pushing the boats to get to the Miraflores locks even earlier than our allotted time for some reason.

The end result was that Moonshiner just couldn't keep up the pace and the engine started to protest by losing revs. Oops! We were in the unfortunate position of going nowhere fast in the middle of the canal with enormous ships bearing down on us. This sort of thing happens quite often however and so the Authorities quickly sent a launch to push us alongside a jetty while we sorted out the engine.....our line handlers, Bill (Camomile) and Nigel (Honalee) were brilliant and quickly got the engine back (and purring), so we continued on our way, by this time a long way behind the other five yachts and no chance of catching up. The Panama canal waits for no man!
We had to be rescheduled and our advisor Victor who was very patient (and kept well fed with ginger nuts) arranged for us to go through the first lock, the Pedro Miguel, alongside a tug. So our line handlers had a rest while the tug did all the work.

Then we had to wait for some time before a suitably sized ship was scheduled to go through so that we could motor in ahead of it. This is why there is always a need for 4 line handlers on each boat. You just never know what will happen...... As it turned out, we had a special transit which was apparently watched by some form of English royalty who just happened to be visiting the canal that day. I've no idea who this dignitary was but we waved as we went past anyway!

Once out of the Miraflores locks, we motored down to the anchorage where we sit today and hoped for a few days rest to get over the colds which were starting to get quite nasty. This was not to be the case for me unfortunately as I discovered the next morning and with 15 minutes warning that I had to go back to the other side of the canal by minibus and help another boat through acting as line handler. Well I did it but only just and I felt like death after two days on the canal again! I'm still coughing and spluttering and this wretched cold is going through the fleet...brought in apparently by some unsuspecting soul who flew in just over a week ago. I've said it before and will repeat that airlines must do something about the quality of the air that their poor passengers are forced to breathe. Rant over..... !
Photos next.......... They're not very good as I wasn't really with it most of the time. Sorry!