Full Panama Canal Crossing!! (in 90 seconds) 🇵🇦🌎⛵️
With no fluff- here is exactly what it’s like to cross one of the most famous canals in the world. 🚢⚓️
The story:
I arrived in Panama in early March. Because the level of water in Gatun lake (man made) is so low this year (climate change), 🌏🫠there are limited spaces for small, non commercial boats to make the transit. Our day took 3 weeks of waiting.
I used an agent to assist the process and file paperwork, also to help us get a sooner transit date. 😂It was helpful to have this off my plate so I could focus on other work.
So we set off at 4am from shelter bay marina in the Atlantic, picked up our pilot (who would help manage the transit and make us follow the rules) and rafted up with two other sailboats to enter the locks. ⛵️⛵️⛵️
The locks use fresh water, gravity fed from Gatun Lake to raise the water level 84 feet. Once in Gatun Lake we motor across the 30 miles in the channel, passing massive shipping tankers the whole way. 🚢
Then my engine broke 😂😂. In the middle of the channel with no wind and shipping tankers bearing down on us. Luckily it wasn’t a difficult fix and after swapping fuel filters we were back on the move before we got run over.
We arrived at the final 3 locks by 1pm and were lowered back down to the level of the Pacific Ocean, followed closely by a supertanker in our same lock.
And by 3pm we were out and free in the pacific!
I’ll post soon more details about this whole process because I found it fascinating.
Post your questions below 👇
#PanamaCanal #Sailing #Panama #livehumbly #oceanconservation
Follow Noa on Instagram 👉 @noathewhale
