Through Panama Canal with Charlie

by Peter Zappert/Sail-World Cruising on 13 Aug 2006 ‘Charlie’ is a catamaran that for the last few years has been undertaking a world circumnavigation. Its Skipper is Peter Zappert, an Australian who has had an adventurous sail across several oceans before coming to the Panama Canal. His description is a fascinating account of the intricacies involved for a transiting sailing boat, and it also contains a wealth of information for the sailor headed that way:


"We arrived in Colon, Panama on 12th Feb 2006. We knew that Sandra was flying in on 26th February and that there could be a 2 or 3 week wait for a time to transit the canal. We therefore decided to get our transit arranged as soon as possible and ask for a transit on 28th Feb 2006.

· Colon/Cristobal and Balboa/Panama City

Some of the names and terms used here are confusing. The trip in the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific is called a 'South Transit' because you actually predominately travel south even though normally you would think of it as an East to West transit.

Colon is a suburb of Cristobal. Either Colon or Cristobal are used to denote the Atlantic end of the Canal. At the Pacific end of the canal there is a town called Balboa, which is only a few miles away from Panama City. I will use Colon as the Atlantic end and Balboa as the Pacific end.

At Colon there is an anchoring area called the Flats and just near the Flats there is a Yacht Club called 'The Panama Canal Yacht Club' which is the only area you can go ashore and which acts as the base for all yachts waiting to transit.

· The Panama Canal Yacht Club

This consists of a small landing jetty, an open area under cover that acts as the meeting, eating , drinking area., a small office, a bar and a small restaurant although most people eat outside. It is all a bit basic.

Each day you are charged $US2 for bringing your dinghy in which gives you free water, security etc.

Colon is about 15 minutes walk away but is too dangerous to go to except in very controlled circumstances. However the Yacht club is totally secure and your dinghy is safe. Thus the yacht club becomes the waiting area for all the yachties.

When we arrived the 'Blue Water Rally' was just going through which included the famous Gypsey Moth, which came and anchored just near us on the Flats. We met a host of pleasant people, Liz and Hans from Switzerland, Bill from Canada who provided us with some good fishing gear, Jens with whom I did a practice transit with as a line handler, Dean and Helen an elderly American couple who were taking their aluminium motor cruiser up to Alaska after Panama (even though Helen really wanted to go to the Galapagos) and so on.

Whilst here I found that the freezer compressor was playing up and engaged a local called Nonin to help. He seemed to know all about compressors, but in fact it took about 7 days to fix it with me having to wait around the yacht club for a lot of this time waiting for Nonin. Eventually it was fixed, but not before we lost all that was left in the freezer. Luckily we were literally at the bottom of our stocks and didn’t lose much. We therefore had a big stock up on meat from the Supermarket.

· COLON

Colon is the port end of Cristobal and is very dangerous. Apparently there are gangs of young people who control most of the town. Whilst I was there I met 3 yachties who thought they knew better who had wandered onto the wrong street and been mugged, although with no serious loss except for a few dollars and their pride.

You could get a taxi into town for $1 or $2 to the large Supermarket. We went regularly to the Internet, which was incredibly cheap (50cents per hour) and caught a taxi back again. We had a haircut, where when we had finished the people in the shop made sure we were safe by calling a taxi for us. They wouldn’t let us outside on our own. It was possible in the middle of the day to walk to the bus station if you kept very carefully to a certain set of streets and kept a good look out. We did this a few times but mostly found it too intimidating and got a taxi.

· Panama City

Panama City is at the opposite side of Panama to Colon but it is easy to get there. The train is nowadays a tourist thing and costs $35 but there is an air-conditioned coach, which is $2.50, takes just about an hour and is safe.

I went to Panama City to buy a new PC. The one I bought in Gibraltar got some sort of virus that I was unable to get rid of so I had to buy a new laptop and even though I don’t connect to the internet, got it fully updated with Nortons Security etc.

I also visited a chandlery for the usual boat bits and pieces.

In Colon a taxi driver charges $10 per hour, whereas in Panama City they charge $8 per hour. Thus having found one that speaks English (not an easy task) you keep him with you whilst you travel from shop to shop. It works out quite well.

· San Lorenzo

One day we took a taxi ride to the area on the other side of the water at the mouth of the Canal. It had some area of National Park which we hoped would show us some wild life.

There is also an old fort there called San Lorenzo which is now broken down from the many times it has been sacked by various people including the famous Henry Morgan the pirate.

We then went for a few short walks into the natural areas. We were rewarded with seeing at close quarters a boa constrictor, some monkeys in the trees and some Pendula birds which live in strange pendulum like structures hanging from the trees.

Apparently there are wild Jaguars in this area, but we didn’t see any.

The Canal

The process is quite complicated and I will try to explain it as simply as I can

Checking into Panama is quite complicated. Luckily some enterprising taxi drivers have organised themselves to provide an excellent service to help you. In our case we used Rudi who over about 2½ hrs took us around the 4 offices in Colon (some 2 times) for a total of $30. In the process we had visited the Measuring Office to book someone to come and measure the boat the following day.

Measuring the boat and getting a scheduled day for our transit. The next day the Panama Canal Authority boat came by and dropped off a Measurer who with his tape measure checked our boat and then got picked up again by his boat. We then went ashore to the Yacht club where we met him and helped him complete a swag of paperwork. His only complaint was that my fog horn that you blow with your mouth was not good enough and I would need a compressed air type canister one for my actual transit. Otherwise we seemed to satisfy him even though he asked some curly questions which I had to guess at, such as which way round did my props go. The idea was that if we phoned his office after 6 o clock that evening we would be given a day that we would be transiting the canal. I phoned at after 6 o clock but they said they couldn’t find my papers, please try the next day. Patiently I tried the next day, but my papers were still lost. On the following day after phone calls to various places, my papers turned up and they allocated me a slot for transit on 28th Feb which was the earliest I wanted to do it (waiting for Sandra). We then had about 2 weeks to hang around and sort everything else out.

Preparing for a transit. When you do a transit you must have 4 x 150ft ropes which are to tie you to both sides of the lock chambers whilst you are held mid chamber. Boats rarely have these onboard so you hire them for $60 the lot. You have to have them on board when you are measured, after which you give them back again until just before you transit when you get them on board again. You also need some car tyres for protection in addition to whatever fenders you have. They cost $4 each and at Balboa when you leave then there, a charge of $1 each is made.