Aaaahhhh Panama. You would have thought that after the exhausting craziness of the last four days and our cumulative sleep deprivation, that we would have just picked a dry shady spot on the boat and crashed. Not the case. First of all, my bed was still wet from the first wave and had become the communal depository of all things damp and stinky. Secondly, it was too blazing hot out. Thirdly, there is usually a lot to do when you first arrive in a new country and port between immigration and checking-in with the yacht club, getting water and electricity, finding a real bathroom, and then taking that extraordinary first shower in 8 days! And finally, there was so much cleaning and drying and fixing and “putting things back” to do that we were ready to get the boat back to normal. Petra and I scrubbed and wiped and disinfected every crevice inside the boat because there seemed to be stale salty water in every crevice inside the boat. The food in our Dry Food locker (pasta, rice, etc.) was floating in murky water. The salt water melted the labels right off the cans in our Canned Food locker. The spices in our Spice cabinet were covered in spilled fish sauce. We ran out of space on the lifelines for all the pillows and coats and clothes and cushions that needed air.

The aftermath was a combination of good and bad news after all was said and done. The day before we were crossing the Canal we discovered that we had lost/broken the rudder off the boat. Bad news. It was actually the worst kind of bad news since there would be no sailing of any kind until that was fixed. It's like losing the steering wheel, but worse. But, the good news was that the small company that built this 30 year old sailboat just happened to have a spare in stock... We were somewhat ecstatic if not a bit shocked. Yes, we had to have it shipped from France and yes, we had to take the boat out of the water to replace it but how lucky were we that the part even still existed? Two weeks to deal with the repair. Two weeks to paint the boat and catch up on maintenance and hand-sew the hundreds and hundreds of stitches it took to re-attach the window of the dodger that was blown out by the wind.

Boat maintenance is such hard work! I had no idea... But you realize how resourceful you can be, and have to be, when it comes down to it and there's no one to call to come and fix it for you. We were lucky that we were in Panama where there are lots of boats coming and going and supplies are fairly available. It won't be the same when we get to Galapagos and beyond... We dry docked the boat and went to it for a whole week, going to bed every night completely exhausted! I am now quite adept at scrubbing barnacles and painting hulls and polishing boats and whipping lines and destructing rust with acid and fixing things that I had no idea what they were before. It's all about reverse engineering. I remember stopping at one point and just chuckling as I looked down at myself and thought that I was so far from my previous life as I could be - standing underneath a 9-ton sailboat in the middle of a boatyard in the sweltering heat, surrounded by palm trees and pelicans, and covered in toxic self-polishing anti-fouling paint.

As a bonus to the whole Panama experience, we were lucky enough to be in Panama for Carnavale, which is probably the country’s biggest holiday, and is definitely four solid days of revelry. Everywhere we went we were warned by everyone we met – taxi drivers, hotel receptionists, other tourists – about the dangers of Carnavale, of the robberies, of the muggings, etc. We had no idea what to expect other than hordes of people. We definitely got the hordes of people, but we also danced all night in the streets to amazing music, met very nice people, saw a Carnaval Queen get crowned, and got just a wee taste of the very festive festivities. I only wish I could have seen the famous parades and floats or experienced getting doused during the infamous water spraying... Next time!

The Panama Canal seems to be something I always heard about, but didn’t necessarily know anything about, nonetheless how it all works or how it came to be. I got ambitious and bought a great book on the history of the Panama Canal just for the trip so that I could get educated before we crossed – David McCullough’s The Path Between Two Oceans. Ha! Who was I kidding? It was 800 pages long. We were about to cross the Canal in real life and the Canal was little more than a bunch of muddy trenches in the book. I got only as far as the 22,000 people dying of malaria and yellow fever and the bankruptcy of the original French builders.

For background, and in a nutshell, the French (who built the Suez Canal), began the task of creating a Panama Canal in the late 1800s. A combination of unpreparedness, incomplete information, overconfidence, bad decisions and disease pushed them to bankruptcy before the Canal was complete. The US bought what remained of the effort in a “fire sale” of sorts and saved it – the Canal was finally completed in 1914. The US had complete rights and control of the Panama Canal and oversaw its operations until 2000 when Panama took over control.

The Panama Canal is about 80 kilometers long across the isthmus that joins North and South America and connects the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic Ocean) to the Bay of Panama (Pacific Ocean). The Canal uses a system of locks (34 meters wide by 305 meters long)that function as water lifts; they raise ships from sea level to the level of Gatun Lake (26 meters above sea level) and ships then sail the channel through the Continental Divide and are lowered back down the other side. About 14,000 ships pass through the Canal every year.

We went to the Gatun Locks (locks on the Atlantic side) to watch the ships go through the canal and just to get a view from the top. The first thing that strikes you is the immense size of the cargo ships. Enormous, massive, hulking vessels. Going through the locks is quite the streamlined process – whistles blow, gates close, and then this huge boat either rises or drops before your very eyes as water is either pumped into (or let out of) the chamber. Twenty minutes later, whistles blow, the gates open, and the boat moves onto the next lock. Right behind it is another ship and the sequence of events continues.

Being able to go through the Panama Canal is quite a exercise in logistics – there are so many forms and carbon-copies and different offices and different lines and fees that you can pay canal agents just to avoid dealing with the hassle. Before you can apply to cross the canal, someone actually has to come and measure your boat and validate that it is worthy and capable of going through. But once your boat has its Ship Identification Number, it belongs to the Panama Canal “fraternity” of ships that are registered for the canal, and you never have to be measured again. Then you fill out more forms and get more carbon copies, pay your fees, and then wait to get assigned your time slot. The cargos that we saw as we first came into the harbor in Colon were actually all anchored and waiting for their turn to go through the Canal. There must have been quite a log jam because there were plenty of boats out there, and we had to wait a whole week before we could go through. Herbie??

The actual crossing is surreal. Sailboats go through the locks behind the ships, so you feel about as big as an ant and as safe as an egg underneath an elephant’s butt. It‘s an intimidating place to be because you are so small and flimsy in comparison, but it’s actually just the place you want to be because you get to watch the doors to the ocean close behind you.

You can tell the boats that are crossing the canal from a mile away. There are tires wrapped in black garbage bags with packing tape strung all around the boat as protection, and there are piles of ropes on deck, four 125-foot lines to be exact. Every sailboat requires 4 line handlers and a skipper on board to go through the locks. Each of the corners of the boat are literally hooked onto the top of the chamber, and you tighten or loosen the lines accordingly to keep the boat centered and stable as it moves up or down with the water. There are horror stories of boats smashing into the walls, etc. but our trip was pretty uneventful. We were lucky to be rafted to “Big Reef,” a bigger South African sailboat with 4 young guys who have been at sea for over a year and have been through the Canal three times already. They did all the line work and we got a free ride... There are canal workers on the top of the walls who are throwing monkey fists at you to retrieve your lines with which they hook you up to the wall for the uplock or downlock. These guys then literally walk you to the next lock when it’s time. All boats that cross also have to have an official canal pilot on board to guide you through the locks and supervise your movements. It’s probably a lot bigger deal with a lot more consequence when you’re dealing with a powerful massive ship with thousands of tons of cargo. Our pilot Ernesto barely looked up from his newspaper and when he did it was to tell us to steer closer to one side when a big ship was about to pass from the other side.

Entering our first set of locks was the big oooh aaah experience. You can tell because I took about 6 rolls of film that day! You motor into this lock behind a big ship and are surrounded on all four sides by huge 30 foot walls. The huge iron gates slowly shut behind you (which are just like the big scary gates in the Lord of the Rings movie) and the next thing you know, the water beneath you is bubbling and churning and you’re rising to the top and looking behind you at water that's now below you. It doesn’t take as long as you think it would to fill the chamber with so much water and go through the whole process six times, especially when there are train engines and people and whistles and gates and lines involved, but it’s really like clockwork.

Our crossing was delayed because of the volume of cargos that were going through and that we were crossing right in the middle of Carnaval where everything is closed. We couldn’t go all the way through in one day so had to anchor in Gatun Lake overnight. It was actually neat to be anchored off to the side of the highway of huge cargo ships that run all night. It would have been ideal had it not been for the mosquitoes. Remember the 22,000 people that I mentioned that died while building the Canal? It was mostly from mosquito-borne diseases and there I was smack dab in the middle of where it all happened with all the buzzing and blood sucking action! To our right was the cargo ships. To our left was a jungle, and all around us was fairly still water... I wore socks and long pants and a long-sleeved shirt and a hat on my head and cover up in sheets and blankets in the blazing heat of the night to keep them away. I have never had a more miserable night of sleep... and I still woke up itching!

When the Miraflores lock gates opened, it was quite the momentous occasion - it was the first time that Urios or Gregory had been in the Pacific Ocean. It's kind of cool because you literally cross a line in the water (of murky dirty sludgy foam) when you leave the fresh water of the Canal and enter the salt water of the ocean. When you see the Bridge of the Americas, you know that you've officially done it. Tradition says that you throw a nickel into the water when you pass underneath and make a wish. Here's to wonderful weather, calm seas, good wind, sunny days, and catching lots of fish!

We ended up moored at the Balboa Yacht Club a stone's throw away from the Bridge - it was like parking underneath the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate. What an awesome view and sight every night, especially with its lights lit up and as the sun set behind it. We were anchored right off the cargo lanes so every night was also a spectacle of huge ships cruising by. The resulting waves from their wake either gently lulled us to sleep or abruptly woke us out of our slumber. Our entertainment during the daylight hours was the enormous pelicans swooping by all around us and "gracefully" diving for fish (if you've ever seen a pelican dive for fish you know that it's anything but graceful).

Where Colon lived up to its reputation of being a run-down, haggard, dirty tough town that is probably as dangerous as it looks and seems, Panama City was such a charming pleasant surprise in comparison. Part of it looks and seems like New York City with its skyscrapers and business centers, and all the shops and street vendors and taxis. Lively and chaotic is the only word for it. The buses are individually-owned and the drivers obviously take pride in the personal character of their buses and it shows in the bright paint jobs and decorations and lights and horns - I saw a couple of Britney Spears and Pamela Andersen portraits in the midst of the graffiti-ed decor. Casco Viejo was my favorite part of the city though, the old Spanish Colonial section. We spent many days and nights wandering the cobblestone streets and having drinks in the plazas and squares. The architecture and charming buildings with their balconies could have been plopped out of an European postcard, and its slow easy pace fit the sweltering heat of the city. It really took you back to another place and time.

So finally, after three unexpected but busy and interesting weeks in Panama, we leave for the Galapagos this weekend and across the big blue ocean soon thereafter. Provisioning for the Pacific Ocean is quite an exercise in educated guesses and space utilization. How much water do you need for 3 people to make it across an ocean when you don’t know how long it’ll actually take? How many cans of sardines? How many packages of pasta and rice and instant potatoes? How many jars of peanut butter? How many packages of cookies? How many cans of vegetables? How many sponges? Then how do you get it all to fit on boat? Hilarious. The woman at the cash register was shocked – she had never sold anyone that much food at once (5 full heaping trolleys) – and I have never seen a grocery receipt that long... The waterline on the boat dropped a few inches once we packed the food in every nook and cranny, and I will probably never want to eat another packet of Ramen noodles after I get to the South Pacific.

(In case you’re interested, the answers are, in order: 500 litres, 50, 75, 8, too many to count, 120, 12.)

Petra is now heading to Costa Rica so now it’s just me and two Frenchmen for the journey. How do you capture 30 days at sea in a blog? Hopefully there will be fun stories to tell, so stay tuned for my next greetings... from Marquesas!