Panama Canal Transit: Lock to Lock, A Mechanical Miracle!

Yesterday we slipped out of the marina around 1430 hours (2:30 p.m.) — me, my buddy who was buzzing with the same mix of excitement as I was, and the captain of this pristine 47-foot Fontaine he was delivering from France to Puerto Vallarta — bound for our three o’clock pickup of the pilot-slash-advisor. We had our four massive blue dock lines, a heap of neon orange buoys that looked like props from a Nickelodeon game show, and two local line handlers in tow. The vibe was pure nautical theater — the opening act of a telenovela written by Poseidon after one too many espressos.

They say every skipper should crew a transit first, kind of like auditing chaos before starring in it, and they’re absolutely right. It’s equal parts mechanical ballet and slow-motion bumper cars.  Watching it unfold from the sidelines before taking my own boat through was worth its weight in sanity. It’s not rocket science, but it’s definitely a symphony of timing, tension, and teamwork — equal parts education and ego check.

By rule, the Canal requires an advisor (pilot) onboard and four line handlers — each running about $120 for the trip. It’s a mutually beneficial setup: the captain gets experienced hands, and the volunteer crew get a free course in Panama Canal etiquette — a sort of high-stakes dance class taught by Poseidon himself. Like the captain I went with, I’ll be hiring two professional handlers for the stern to pair with the two volunteers onboard. Those guys know the dance — and having them aboard makes life infinitely easier for the captain, the advisor, and anyone else trying to keep the boat from becoming modern art against a 60,000-ton tanker.

Tradition dictates that the captain feeds the crew, gives you a clean rack and when it’s all over, they even pay a hundred bucks for your cab ride back to Shelter Bay — a parting gift for the well-fed stowaway who now has one more story to tell.

Once we departed the marina, we were instructed to drop anchor in a designated spot in the bay and wait for our advisor (pilot) to be dropped off. Naturally, Panama being Panama, he was about two hours late — which might’ve been fine if the sky hadn’t decided to reenact the apocalypse. The wind spiked into the 30s right out of the gate, rain, and lightning strobed like a nightclub for angry gods — the whole horizon looked like Mordor with better humidity. The anchor began to slip, so we pulled it up, circled for a bit like a confused goldfish, still waiting. They radioed, said it’d be a while longer, so we dropped the anchor again. This time it held — small victories in the face of impending doom.

The concern is that Linton Bay forms a 2.5-mile box, closed in by the breakwater. When a storm decides to flex — as they often do here — you’re trapped in Poseidon’s pinball machine, surrounded by tankers, rocks, and beach on all sides. It’s chaos with a soundtrack. In a 47-foot catamaran with five feet of freeboard, that hull can spin faster than a drunk ballerina on roller skates. One wrong gust and you’re choosing between a granite wall, a sandbar embrace, or a slow-motion kiss with a 600-foot tanker. Fortunately, the storm thought better of it, shrugged, and went off to ruin someone else’s day out at sea.

Our pilot finally showed up — his name was Hector, a super nice guy. He gave us the lowdown as we fired the engines back up, hauled the anchor, and headed out. We approached the first set of locks around 1700 hours (5 pm), just as the sun was punching out for the day and the sky went full postcard mode. My first impression, on a purely mechanical level, was that the whole operation is an absolute fever dream for folks like me who geek out over systems, hydraulics, and century-old engineering. The orchestration of it all is amazing — so many people and parts working together with such a level of precision.

Bucket list item engaged, again excitement level at 10 — here we go!

We pulled into the first lock, and it felt like stepping into some grand industrial ballet choreographed by Poseidon himself. It should be mentioned we were lucky — we were the only recreational boat in the chamber — so we didn’t have to side-tie to anyone and had plenty of room on either side. As we approached the first chamber, we secured the massive orange buoys along the sides and these mystery humans onshore started hurling messenger lines — thin ropes with monkey fists tied to the end. (For the uninitiated, a monkey fist is basically a rubber-band baseball designed specifically to bruise your ego if you miss the catch.) They threw four of them, and we tied on the four blue dock lines we were issued before leaving the marina for each corner of the vessel, using bowline knots with large loops (last part is important). Our four line handlers (including me on the starboard bow) fed them back like seasoned rodeo pros who somehow got lost at sea.

The captain kept motoring into the chamber while the line handlers on land walked our lines to control the pace. Before long, we slid in about eight feet behind a tanker and the line handlers secured our lines onshore. The tanker was basically a floating apartment complex with exhaust stacks and its two tugs — a steel skyscraper drifting through a bathtub. We were close enough to read the scratches on its hull. Again with no boats beside us, we counted ourselves lucky. During high season, when the canal looks like rush hour for floating condos, they stack recreational boats three-wide in flotillas — side-tied drifting towards destiny. Each captain’s trying to motor straight while their advisors direct them, the walls looming three feet away on either side. Pretty much no room for error. So need less to say we felt lucky and were thrilled about it — just us, the tanker, two tugboats, and three million gallons of gravity-fueled mayhem.

Then the gates closed behind us — those colossal steel doors swinging shut like the final act in some aquatic Shakespearean tragedy — and suddenly, we were in it. The lines went slack as the lock flooded from below, and our boat began to rise. The entire system is powered by gravity, by the way — no pumps, no motors, just clever holes in the ground and water from a lake 85 feet above sea level pouring down like the gods of plumbing showing off.  We could immediately feel the raw power of the water lifting us, this ridiculous little floating home, up toward the sky. The turbulence kicked up, the stern yawed, and the bow wandered. Our job as line handlers was simple but essential: pull in the blue dock lines that were cleated off on shore as the water rose, keeping tension while holding the boat straight in the channel. Pretty simple — in theory. Again since we were just a single boat wide, we had about fifteen feet of drift room on either side, which made things a lot easier. We managed to grab photos, shoot some videos, and even have a little fun with it.  

The big ships actually motor through, but they’re guided by these little electric locomotives with massive steel cables — they call them mules — trundling along rails on either side, plus a tug off the stern. They look like Pixar characters hauling skyscrapers through a kiddie pool, somehow managing to stay within inches of the concrete walls without scraping paint. The coordination between the pilot, the captain, his two lookouts on either side, the tug boat and the eight mules onshore has to be nothing short of telepathic — a high-stakes waltz of diesel, gravity, and pure stubborn physics. One bad call and you’ve got a billion-dollar game of canal bumper cars. It’s absurd, hypnotic, and absolutely brilliant.

Once the water rose, alarms blared like an overexcited robot opera, and the massive gates in front of us creaked open like some ancient, hydraulic monster stretching after a nap. Then the whole process started again — two more times — Each time the forward gates opened, we inched forward with the line handlers pacing us. They’d cleat off the lines onshore, the water would surge upward, the lines would slack, and we’d do it all over again. The entire ballet took about two and a half hours.  When we finally cleared the last lock, our lines were tossed back to us, and we waved goodbye to our line handling counterparts onshore (mines name was Pita, I asked) before motoring off into the darkness under a sky so full of stars it looked like someone spilled the universe. Our next stop was our mooring ball for the night in Gatun Lake. It’s a bit different — you don’t tie off at the bow as usual; instead, there are only three large mooring balls, each one built to side-tie two boats together. It was just us, so the process was gloriously simple — and we could finally breathe. 

Once we settled in, the captain broke out the $75 crew meal provided by the agent — a legendary tin of fried rice containing every species known to mankind and another equally huge tray of random chicken parts. After a day like that, it tasted like fine dining at sea. We annihilated most of it in minutes. Only later did we learn that the meal was supposed to cover dinner, breakfast, and lunch. So yeah — breakfast was just coffee and scraps. Worth it. The vibe turned campfire-style after that — laughter, stories, and the smell of diesel mixed with soy sauce. After the dinner subsided we said goodbye to our day one Pilot Hector and got ready to hit the rack! I was told the accommodations had A/C, which sounded exotic to a monohull guy like me with no AC at sea.— but, naturally, the generator picked that night to die dramatically. It had worked flawlessly for 6000 miles. Coincidence? Please.

Clearly it was not making water. So the captain went into the drink, and the through-hull was clear. Lots of sea grass crossing the Caribbean — figured that was it. Happened to me twice from Puerto Rico to Panama. I did what I do best: crawled into the engine room like an over-caffeinated ferret with a wrench. Pulled the impeller — it was fine. Pulled the hose off the through-hull — nothing. Then I removed the check valve from the fitting, and voilà — water blasting everywhere. Bingo: failed check valve. It was like it had been lying in wait just for me. I told the captain, “You don’t need this thing for one evening, Drill it out, your going to have to replace it tomorrow in Panama anyway.” We all really wanted the AC, but we left it alone — it’s a brand-new boat, and drilling into things seemed... unwise.

It was a hot, sticky night with no A/C, but not my first rodeo. I’d brought my own fan from my boat, and either way, it was kind of perfect. I lay there, feeling the gentle sway, listening to the jungle hum and the water whisper against the hull. The stars were ridiculous — like someone had spilled glitter across the sky. Sweat, grease, and starlight — I’ve had worse nights. Plus, I had been dock-locked on my boat for three months. It’s hard for a sailor to sleep tied to something. We need the swing and the sway, Poseidon rocking us to sleep.

The captain let us know around 2300 hours (11 pm), “The pilot will be there at half six!” — which apparently translates to somewhere between sunrise and lunch in Panama. I was up at five, six, seven — nothing. 0830 hours rolls around, and like clockwork that doesn’t believe in clocks, here comes the pilot boat. Daniel hops aboard, our second advisor, super cool kat, and says, “Stay to the right, and avoid ships.” That’s it. That’s the grand strategy for the next four hours snaking through jungle waterways that make container ships look like floating cities. 

Honestly, It’s spectacular. Emerald green all around, the water flat as glass, and you just glide through living history. Every sailor dreams of this moment — the gates of the Panama Canal closing behind them, the jungle breathing all around, and you right in the middle of it all, smiling!

We hit the second set of locks late in the afternoon — maybe around 1400 hours (2 p.m.) — same song, different verse. This time, though, it was daylight, and the massive tanker was behind us instead of in front — like being followed by a skyscraper on rollerblades. The process reversed: now you’re letting out lines instead of pulling them in, easing them gently as the water drains away — a mechanical waltz in reverse. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that unlike the locks going up, you have to be very careful with how the lines run around the cleats when easing them out on the way down. If one of those dock lines locks up on a cleat while the boat’s being lowered, you can end up with a hung boat — dangling like a hooked marlin — and they can’t just refill the lock in a second.

This was followed by a humorous debate over which would fail first: the line, the cleat on the boat, or the bollard onshore. I voted cleat. Either way, the note was duly processed!

Watching that monster ship descend into the channel was mesmerizing. The sun blazing, the air thick, and the entire thing running like clockwork powered by gravity and stubbornness. I couldn’t stop grinning. Humanity may have invented Wi-Fi and self-driving cars, but this? This is still our finest moment.

And then — there it was. The gates opened, the breeze blew in, and I was staring at the Pacific. Smelled like freedom! Four years ago, I’d sailed away from La Cruz, Mexico — that same ocean — to start this whole absurd adventure of circumnavigating. Of course, I was just crew on this boat — my Hold Fast — still waiting patiently in Shelter Bay for us to go through together. Truthfully, I did feel like I was cheating on her a bit. But seeing the Pacific again from this angle? That hit deep — like closing a loop you didn’t even know was still open. It’s been a long, hard, beautiful, ridiculous ride — But seeing that endless blue again felt like the universe giving a little wink and saying, “See? You’re almost there.” I just have to do it on my boat! Scratch that — I get to!

And that was it. We dropped the line handlers off in a dinghy, sent the pilot back by tug, tied up at the marina, grabbed coffee and McDonald’s like the civilized pirates we are, and hopped in an Uber across Panama back to Shelter Bay Marina. Less than 48 hours later, I am back aboard Hold Fast, A/C humming, candy in hand, grinning like a madman.

Over the last four years and 40,000 miles looping this little blue marble, I’ve ticked off more bucket-list boxes than I can count — gone on African safaris, Single Handed an ocean (oceans), Swam with Sharks, Mantas and Mola Molas, Sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, dove the reefs of Palau, filled my first passport book, Held a monkey (which went about as well as you’d imagine), earned my captain’s license, and even stayed in one of those overwater bungalows in Bora Bora that look like postcards you assume are fake. The list runs the gamut of countless little dreams I once scribbled on napkins in bars. But this — this canal transit — this was something else entirely. A true sailor’s rite of passage, equal parts absurdity and awe. Out of every mad, beautiful, salt-crusted adventure I’ve had so far, this one floats right right close to the top. And I wouldn’t trade a single drop of diesel, sweat, or soy-sauce-scented chaos for the world.

Days Sober: 2,098

*Yes, that’s me in the black shirt clapping in the video — what can I say, I’m a nerd. 😂

Pro Tip #1If you’re planning to captain your own boat through the Panama Canal, crew for someone else first. They’ll feed you, cover your taxi back to Shelter Bay, and you’ll get a front-row seat to the organized chaos before it’s your turn at the helm. There’s a lot that can go wrong in there, and that firsthand experience will massively boost your situational awareness — which, for any captain, is everything.

Pro Tip #2If you’re in a monohull, plan on being glued to the helm for two long days. The autopilot might be steering, but you’re still stuck there babysitting it. Like most monos, mine makes it tough to see over the cabin top unless you’re standing, so I rigged up a way to sit comfortably and still see ahead. It’s hot, it’s long, and you’ll want a setup that doesn’t make you regret your life choices halfway across Gatun Lake.