WE ARRIVED IN THE PACIFIC

We arrived in Balboa and are presently anchored near Flamenco Marina. We have check into Puerto Balboa and have continued the paper work danse!

The transit went fairly well. No problems for any of the boats. We were quite pleased that Murphy´s Law did not rear it´s ugly head and play a role in our transit. The two previous transits we had done at least one boat had engine problems, but we are happy to report that our hull and rigging made it through safetly. Our one concern was the catamaran we were transiting with did not appear to be well skilled in his manuverability which could have potentially put the boat in a dangerous position. He also had ¨profesional linehandler¨, which seem to be over paid Panamanians. I say overpaid as they don´t know how to tie a knot to save their life and there were a few moments where I really feared for our boat.

We were originally told we would depart the anchorage at 4pm, this quickly became 5pm, then 6, and our advisor finally arrived at almost 8. Despite all my concerns of getting a mean poorly trained advisor, Roderick was very nice and a very well trained tug boat captain. We up locked tied to a catamaran who was tied to a tug boat. This made for a very stable trip. We got to the Gatum Lake after midnight for a late dinner and to get a little sleep before the next advisor woudl arrive early in the morning.

The next morning his friend another very nice tug boat captain arrived at almost 7. We arrived at the Miraflores locks at 11, and were out of the canal by well before noon. It was certainly the fastest transit we did. We down locked tied to the wall by ourselves as we didn´t want to have to rely on the catamaran. Our linehandlers, who were people from other boats waiting to go through, were very nice, helpful, and accamodating in dealing with rain, a stuffy short night´s sleep. Everyonewas happy to arrive after a long, hot, and wet(only in the morning) day. JP and I were happy to have arrived safetly. We had drinks on a French boat who we had help with their transit earlier.