The process goes like this. We are currently in Shelter Bay, on the Caribbean side of Panama. We motor to the "flats", near the east side of the entrance to the Gatun locks. We wait there, dong some lazy circles, until our canal advisor arrives. If we were a ship, we would get a pilot, but since we're only a little boat, we have an "advisor". In any case, the advisor tells us what to do throughout the transit.
Once the advisor is onboard we head to the first lock. We don't yet know who else will be in the lock with us. We could be alone (not likely), with two other yachts behind a big ship (more likely), rafted to a tug, not known yet. We should find out tomorrow morning.
Once in the locks our line handlers, Kimberly (San Diego), Mark (New Zealand), Rudy (rent-a-linehandler), and Fay, catch a "monkey's fist" from the line handlers on shore, wrap it around our lines, and then our line gets dragged back to the line handlers on shore. The purpose of the lines is to hold us in the middle of the lock and it's a very important job. We don't want to hit the very rough sides of the locks (built in 1914).
The three Gatun locks each lift us about 20'. So they fill the lock with water, flowing downhill from the lock above, and ultimately from Gatun Lake. The lock is about 1,000' x 150', so something like 22 million gallons of water flow into the lock which creates a lot of turbulence. Once we've been lifted 20', the ship in front of us (there will likely be a big ship in front of us), slowly moves forward under its own power, while electric "mules" keep it in the center of the lock and stop it from hitting the next door at the end of the next lock. Repeat this for three locks.
When we come out of the last lock, we motor about 1/4 mile to a very large mooring buoy where we tie up for the night. The advisor goes home and we have dinner.
The advisor returns the next morning about 6am and we motor slowly across Gatun Lake, roughly 30miles to the Miraflores locks. It's a similar process, but much less traumatic because the water is draining out of the lock, rather than filling the lock. The water just basically drains out the bottom, while our line handlers ease our lines to keep us centered, and we are lowered 20' each time. That's it, we're in the Pacific Ocean!
Somewhere in there the advisor gets off and then we motor to the Flamenco Marina where we'll do our preparations for the trip to the Galapagos and French Polynesia. We expect to depart in mid-March.
There is a webcam for the Gatun locks at: http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html
Pick the Gatun Locks high res and then select the magnifier to zoom in.
