Panama Canal into the Pacific

Sunday Island is not in the Pacific Ocean – Pacific Vagabonds

On 3rd January Emilies father Phillippe, and his brother Laurent and wife Marie Laure arrived in Panama and joined us on the boat.

I checked into the Panama Port Authority at Cristobel signal station notifying them of our arrival into Panama. After numerous calls to different departmetns I was then able to confirm our Panama transit for the 12th January and requested permission to return to San Blas while we waited for our tranit.

Over the past few days our starter motor had started to play up (Again) and we sent it to the shop. The mechanics reported it had never been rebuit and the issue was due to the internal solenoid (apparently replaced in Malta and then again in Greece last in 2022!). I also ordered new starter motor as a replacement and a spare anchor winch motor as they are good spares to have for our pending Pacific voyages.

We set sail for San Blas on 4th January conducting a “Sea Trial” and enjoyed a sail to the San Blas with very unusual Westerly winds! During the folloinw four days in Panama we enjoyed cruising the islands and did some fantastic sailing and adventuring around remote tropical islands – some no bigger than a small car with a solitary coconut tree!

The snorking was fantastic and Issy and Max enjoed swimming with sharks for the first time – amazingly they were completely undauted by the sharks, and dived down to get a closer look (don’t worry – Dad confirmed the sharks were not dangerous). We also enjoyed swimming with rays, gropers, and huge schools of fish.

On a sad note was the amount of plastic washed up on all the islands… its just overwhelming as one could fill up truck fulls of plastic and still not make a dent. I picked up old fishing nets but the rest was simply out of our control to clean up. We noticed other cruisers cleaning small bags of rubbish from the beach, and some burning the plastic that had washed up… the solution on this scale of pollution can only be put in the hands of government. Billionares with money to donate for a clean up, or the companies that make the plastic in the first place contributing to its removal?

On 9th January we returned to Shelter Bay and made preparations for our transit. We serviced the engine, checked the strainers, fuel, oil, cooling water and engine for any leaks and gave Sunday Island a thorough clean inside and out. Unfortunalty the starter motor could not be repaired, and the new spare part did not fit. We would need to take the risk and transit with a dodgy starter motor. The night before our transit we motored to anchor in the ‘Flats” for the night in preparation for our 0430 pilot. En-route to the anchorage the engine overheated!

After a few hours replacing in impeller and checking all other reasons for the overheating we started the engine and all worked well…. I barely sleept that night stressing about the starter motor and pending transit, At 0345 i woke with a jolt.. had we overslept? I turned on the VHF radio to Channel 12, and the pilots were on the move. I pressed the start button on the engine…………..(pause for added suspense)……. BROOOOMMMMMMMMM! The engine started like new…. water was gushing out the back like it should, oil temp, water temp ok…. ready for takeoff sir!

The pilot boarded at 0420, anchor away and we were off to the 1st lock. We rafted up to a Beneteau 44 “Titaua” and secured lines in the canal behind car carrier Zenith Leader of London. The belles rang, and we began to rise in the lock… we were on our way to the Pacific!