The trip on Gatun lake was very interesting; this is the largest artificial lake in the world! It provides 33km of the waterway's total of 77km length with the ships (still) following the original course of the Rio Chagres. But works are underway to expand the canal, cutting away (with explosives, of course) large amounts of rocks, almost mountains, in order to make the new waterway ¨straight¨.  The ships passing through will be larger than the current ones...for technical updates and pictures, this link should give you exact information and graphs!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal_expansion_project

As announced, at 6am on Saturday morning, our new pilot,Franklin, arrived on board (on a tug boat)...he was coming from Panama city and had had a very early start! Heiner was in charge of breakfast and made enough pancakes to feed the hungry crew! We had Canadian maple syrup (brought along in our luggage) and even our pilot seemed to find the apple pancake - maple syrup combination delicious! Caribbean people love sweets! Pancakes were a hit!

We had a 4 hour long trip on the Gatun lake before coming to the Pedro Miguel and the Miraflores locks. Lots of time to sip our coffee admiring the landscapes and listening to our pilot who was very knowledgeable about the expansion of the canal and the ensuing ecological challenges!

AIS map showing an amazing amount of boat traffic in the canal...as expected!

 There was a lot of light entering the locks...one large ship and a tug ..as for us, we had to tie up to a large trimaran! Not an easy task in the dark, blended by lights. Our pilot, Ricky, was very relax but the trimaran pilot was a nervous type...anyhow, Heiner and Stephen (our fourth line handler) manage to untie ropes, and got rapidly familiar with the routine.While Heiner has done a lot of locks, this was different: the lines were thrown from a very high with a monkey fist wall by two canal employees: the line handlers had to tie our lines to it so the employes could retrieve them and attach them to the posts.  Our boats were so to say floating between the lock walls while the water was coming up at quite a speed!

 It was about 23h30 when we got to our anchorage at Lake Gatun...well, rather than anchoring, we tied up to a very large buoy together with the trimaran. After a very late supper (!), all went to bed! Next morning, the pilot was scheduled for 6am...

 Before leaving the Chagres, we took advantage of its quiet waters to transfer SuAn's name made of vinyl lettering onto the hull..a difficult job for Gabi and Heiner as some of the lettering were almost 10 years old!!! But the result was great! It was important to affix the boat's name on the hull so that the Canal Pilots would be able to spot it easily!

That evening, back in Colon, the preparation for the transit continued with Gabi and Lutz looking for a fourth line handler and working at updating their blog to inform their friends and relatives about the schedule of the canal transit. Heiner and Marleyne went shopping: we were going to have an extra crew member for the next 36 hours as well as 2 pilots ( a different one each day) who would take their meals with us!  Lutz has hired an agent - Eric - for managing the Canal transit; this agent was looking after getting us tires and lines as well as the coordination of pilots. That same evening, we were to go anchor at the flats where a pilot would board our boat to commence the first stretch of the Canal.

After the forest exploration, we made it to the dam by dinghy...the Gatun Dam..an amazing piece of engineering! We took the opportunity to walk up to the Gatun locks...to put us in the mood for our upcoming canal transit! Of course, we could not resist buying hellado from a street vendor: although we wished for different flavours, we all got vanilla! ...must be because of Marleyne's Spanish speaking skills!

While the night itself was wonderfully calm, the howler monkeys had a strong presence at sunset and in the early morning hours! As for the crocodiles which were supposed to inhabit the river, we did not see any: not even at night when we tried to spot them with the flashlight! After seeing several men snorkeling looking for lobsters, we decided that crocodiles were definitely not a threat and enjoyed an early morning swim before Heiner's pancakes breakfast (or was it Lutz pancakes that morning?)...

After breakfast, we motored further along the beautiful river. 


We anchored the boat not too far away from the dam.  We found a wooden dock along the bank and followed a path in the jungle trying to locate the howler monkeys who were very loud that morning although it was 10am!  As soon as our presence was felt, there was silence! But they were there, surrounding us! and spying on us from the highest branches!!! We spent quite a bit of time standing there...feeling like in a National Geographic documentary!

We then continued on the same path and witnessed capuchin monkeys pursuing squirrels in very high trees. Capuchin monkeys are omnivorous! For a moment, I dreamed of importing some to Kingston so they could scare away our numerous black squirrels...but I decided not to...just because ..our squirrels are too large!

And then there were leaf cutting ants`driving on a path parallel to ours...see video clip

Time passed by so quickly: one could have stayed forever in this forest just observing and relishing the tropical experience!

Fuerte San Lorenzo is the landmark at the very entrance of the Rio Chagres. We did not have the opportunity to visit it but the following web site has more pictures of the fort http://www.galenfrysinger.com/panama_fort_san_lorenzo.htm. 

We motored for at least one hour admiring the tropical forest and looing for the best anchoring spot from where we could do some explorations. We read in our cruising guide that there were paths in the forests and that it was also possible to sail up the Lake Gatun damm.

Our first incursion in the dense vegetation of the forest was somewhat magical: trees were very high forming a green dome overhead, with many butterflies fluttering around us when Heiner spotted the large blue morpho!

With three days to wait before transiting the Canal, we chose to leave the Colon anchorage near Club Nautico as it is a busy place with all kinds of vessels making too many waves !!!

Instead, we choose to sail to the Rio Chagres: its mouth is only 6 km from Colon and a nice sail with the wind at our back brings us there in no time! 

The Rio Chagres is a river that played an essential role at the time of explorations by Europeans: all the gold, the jewels and the goods were transported on the Rio Chagres, which is after all the only river in the world that empties into two oceans! The tales of the expeditions along the Chagres river are amazing! We were so lucky to have the time and means to explore the river!

 Fuerte San geronimo is the town's most stunning riun with its parade ground still intact..and eighteen gun emplacements of the former battery. We walked along the battery...and were able to see the the gunpowder rooms, the latrines, the rainwater ditches...

The town of Portobelo is strikingly beautiful with its moss green ruins of Fuerte Santiago, Fuerte San Fernando and with its imposing Customs House through which gold and treasures carried by ships between the Two Worlds in the 16th century have been passed through its walls. Amazing history! A visit of the Casa de la Aduana, built in 1638 to replace an earlier wooden structure is relating this history.  We liked wandering around its walls and noted that there were only one entrance and one exit: yes, this was intentional and meant to reduce thefts! From the second story, we had fabulous view of Portobelo's anchorage and Fuerte San Geronimo.

Our last visit in Panama and in Portobelo last November had been marked by rainy weather and so we had spent too little time wandering around the town. Although it is an economically rather deprived town, numerous paintings and drawings on the walls of sometimes dilapidated houses and building give it a certain appeal...

 Portobelo hosts two famous festivals every year. The Festival de Congos y Diablos takes place every two years in March with smaller celebrations leading up to Carnaval.  Yesterday's ritual dances in the street were probably linked to that Festival... which we  missed as its final ceremony was to take place at the end of March.  Nevertheless, there were young artists of Portobelo at work preparing huge masks for the event.
                                     

The inhabitants of Portobelo are referred to as Congo because a large proportion of its inhabitants were escaped slaves known as cimarrons.  In the festival Diablos Y Congos, they mock the Spanish Court wearing extravagant costumes, painting their faces, wearing outlandish clothes worn inside out and decorated with dolls, teddy bears, and other objects (Lutz observing one of the dancers thought that his dolls and bears were reminiscent of voodoo practices...).  In many of the rituals characterisez by chants and dances, "prisonners" are taken and released for ransom - this explains why some of us were drawn in the dance circle yesterday night!!! Usually, a few coins or a beer can buy their freedom back!

Lutz has been working hard to make arrangements for the canal transit...Carnival is slowing things down a little but it looks like we would be transiting on March 12 and 13! In the mean time, we are spending time with our friends, have good food, nice drinks, visit Portobelo and tonight, as I am writing, we are sitting in the Portobelo cruisers bar Captain Jack where there is entertainment..guess who???? Pam and Bill of course! Watch them live on a video clip (check right side of page under VIDEO CLIPS)

It is great fun...one of the best moments of cruisers  life!!!

After that entertainement, we strolled slowly towards the dinghy dock and heard drum music and whistles: the Portobelo Congos were also entertaining! After all, it was Carneval! See the video Clip!

After a longish trip from Panama by bus, we stopped at the first Fonda of Portobelo to taste our first Balboa and short after that, we saw our dear Pam coming towards us, and then she got Bill, and then Gabi and Lutz showed up and this was a great wiedersehen!!!

Ola amigos. Although it is 30c more than at home, we are already used to the temperature and we feel at home here at Hotel Costa Inn. This morning at breakfast, we met a friendly Ecuadorian family and tonight, while looking at the Pacific ocean from our terrasse, a couple of Alaskan travelers (not sure what they needed to escape most:their weather or Sarah Palin).

Tomorrow we are taking the bus to Portobelo to meet with our friends.-