Hello: from Shelter Bay marina Panama. The marina is just inside the Caribbean breakwall and is pleasant. Our 2 night sail from Cartagena was easy with light following winds. We arrived here at about 10 AM. Lots of ship traffic coming, going and at anchor. We finally got our AIS working so we had a better idea of what was happening. AIS - Automatic identification System - all commercial are required to have a transmitter. We can see their signal that tells name, cargo, weght, destination, speed and direction from about 25-30 miles away. It even tells if they are at anchor. We never had this system in previous boat. We relied mostly on radar - now radar and AIS.

We are scheduled to transit the canal on Thursday. We have 4 line handler and captain along with 4 -180 ft long ropes and lots of tires hanging over the sides. Don't know if it will take one long day or two. We did it in one day back in 2003. The canal is an engineering marvel - something to really see. I can guarantee we will see it up closely. We will be lifted up 3 locks on the Caribbean side to the elevation of lake Gatun, a fresh water lake. It is 82 ft higher than sea level - the highest elevation this boat will ever sail. We think that we will then spend the night tied to a buoy, then motor 26 miles across the lake to begin our locks down to the Pacific. We nervously await our turn.

Panama Canal Trivia

• Generally up to 40 ships transit the Canal each day but the most recorded was on February 29th, 1968 when 65 commercial vessels transited.
• The fastest transit was by US Navy hydrofoil Pegasus in June 1979, taking two hours and 41 minutes.
• On September 4th, 2010, the Fortune Plum became the one millionth ship to transit the Panama Canal.
• The most expensive toll paid for the original locks is US$375,600 by the cruise ship Norwegian Pearl in 2010 (Larger NeoPanamax ships can pay in excess of a million dollars). The lowest is 36 cents paid by Richard Halliburton when he swam the entire length of the Canal in 1928.
• French impressionist painter Paul Gauguin worked as a common labourer on the Canal in 1887.
• The Panama Canal is the only place in the world where military commanders must relinquish control of their ships during the transit.
• Officially the SS Ancon was the first vessel to transit the Panama Canal on August 15th, 1914. However, the first transit completed through the Canal was done as part of a work routine on January 7th, 1914, when the crane Alexander La Valley crossed the Pacific locks without any type of ceremony.
• The material excavated from the Canal was used to build the Causeway breakwater at the Pacific entrance and the Gatun Dam. It also created nearly 500 acres of land, and plenty was dumped in the jungle.
• Although the French attempt at constructing the Panama Canal is often seen to be a failure, they had excavated a total of 59.75 million cubic metres when they gave up in 1899. This included 14.255 million cubic metres from the Culebra Cut which lowered the peak by 102 metres.
• Over 70% of the Canal excavation came from the Culebra Cut.
• In WWII the Japanese built two I-401 submarines that were underwater aircraft carriers able to launch up to three short range bombers. These were the largest submarines of that era. It has been said that if they had launched these submarines just six months earlier they could possibly have damaged the Panama Canal and turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.