Canal Crossing
Two good friends and I fell backwards into an all-expense paid trip across the canal on a sailboat. Actually, we were more like hired help, but it didn't matter. My Aussie friend Stuart got us jobs as line-handlers for a couple who were in the middle of a 3-year around-the-world sailing trip.
Danika and Sten were on their way from the Caribbean to the Galapagos in the Pacific via the Panama Canal. They needed some guys to catch and tie the lines thrown down from the canal workers to secure the boat as they filled the locks with water. We happened to be those guys.
It was pretty neat being in the giant locks as they filled with water (each one of the locks is like a bathtub the size of a football field, but because of the canal's incredible engineering marvel, can be filled up in about 5 minutes using basically valves and gravity. The canal is composed of three sets of locks that act as water elevators to bring the ships up from sea level to the Gatun lake's altitude so they can cross the isthmus -check out the diagram below).
The whole trip took about 20 hours because we had to spend the night after passing through the first set of locks. Probably the coolest part was when we tied up to the bouy next to the jungle for the evening. The lake was dead silent and calm until it seemed the jungle animals clocked in for their nighttime shift. The howler monkeys were the most raucous and impressive - as if their yells could be heard for miles.
Among the many things I learned is that sailboat livin' isn't a bad lifestyle, if you can get used to the cramped quarters and constant rocking. But you must really like a person to share that tiny boat. We heard stories of husbands who had dropped their wives off at foreign ports because of the strain of sailing - or maybe it was just their bad cooking.
The crew
Here's a video of the canal filling up with water.
Danika and Sten were on their way from the Caribbean to the Galapagos in the Pacific via the Panama Canal. They needed some guys to catch and tie the lines thrown down from the canal workers to secure the boat as they filled the locks with water. We happened to be those guys.
It was pretty neat being in the giant locks as they filled with water (each one of the locks is like a bathtub the size of a football field, but because of the canal's incredible engineering marvel, can be filled up in about 5 minutes using basically valves and gravity. The canal is composed of three sets of locks that act as water elevators to bring the ships up from sea level to the Gatun lake's altitude so they can cross the isthmus -check out the diagram below).
The whole trip took about 20 hours because we had to spend the night after passing through the first set of locks. Probably the coolest part was when we tied up to the bouy next to the jungle for the evening. The lake was dead silent and calm until it seemed the jungle animals clocked in for their nighttime shift. The howler monkeys were the most raucous and impressive - as if their yells could be heard for miles.
Among the many things I learned is that sailboat livin' isn't a bad lifestyle, if you can get used to the cramped quarters and constant rocking. But you must really like a person to share that tiny boat. We heard stories of husbands who had dropped their wives off at foreign ports because of the strain of sailing - or maybe it was just their bad cooking.
The crew
Here's a video of the canal filling up with water.
posted by Bram Fiebelkorn at
9:14 PM
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