We are presently crossing from Panama to Hawaii but before I talk about that, I would like to close the Panama chapter by talking about our crossing of the canal and give a few tips to navigators who are thinking of doing the same. If you are Canadian and you have done the locks between St-Francois lake and Ontario lake on the St-Lawrence river, you have already seen bigger locks that the one on the Panama canal. However, if you would have the same six 12 meter locks to do in Canada, you would only need 150$ CAN, 2 people, no pilot and the lines would be provided by the lock men. Here, you need more than a 1000$ US (note that all the prices below will be in US), 5 people, an advisor and 4 lines of 125 feet each. Why make things simple when you can make them complicated? Having all these people on board for a couple of days make the crossing much more interesting as you can see in the pictures.
https://picasaweb.google.com/103447188037594653674/CanalPanamaPanamaCity17032013ATo310302013?authuser=0&feat=directlink
For navigators, having a cellular phone has proven to be very useful since we have to contact the Port Authority to confirm our appointments. We have also used it to contact line handlers and Mr. Tito (see below) for the canal and taxis and stores in Panama city to find needed parts. The cell phone services are not very expensive and they almost give away the phones. Also, WI-FI is not often available so if you are thinking of spending many months here, you might want to consider a USB cellular internet card for about 40$ and 15$/month for service. But the real point of this paragraph is to say that out of the three providers in Panama, the one who seems to cover the most ground (including San Blas and the Perlas) is Digicel.
For the papers, like everywhere you need to go to immigration in customs. However, some prices are different depending on where you land. In Porvenir, the immigration will cost 50$/person for 6 months. It is free in Colon and Portobello. By Colon, I mean the offices in the city. If you use the man in Shelter Bay Marina, he is in fact an agent and will charge some fees. You need a cruising permit and the price seems to be about the same everywhere. It is based on a complicated addition that far exceeds my mental capabilities... and apparently changes very often. We paid 130$ for a 10m boat for a year (no choice). When moving around, you are supposed to exit every port and enter the next one by visiting customs. They will give you a "Zarpe" which is permission to move around for about 25$/each. In the San blas (Porvenir), you also have to pay 20$ + 2$/person per month to stay on the Guna land and water. If you do not plan on visiting, you can do a "Transit" in Colon which gives you only a passage through the canal without officially entering the country. A little secret; not everybody bothers with all the formalities. Apparently, if an official comes for a visit, a 20$ bill in the paperwork solves any forgetfulness. Mr. Tito (see below for contact) who knows all sorts of net tricks, help us same a few dollars by telling us that we can exit the country in Portobelo with a transit via Balboa. This also saves us from having to do any paperwork on the other side of the canal and allows us to stay for a short while in Panama City and the Perlas (Cost 25$).
For the passage of the canal, an agent will cost between 300$ and 400$. It's excessive considering the amount of work. They will sell themselves by saying that with them you will not need to give a deposit. However, the deposit you will get back not his fees. Some taxi drivers offer to help with the paperwork but one needs to be careful and never leave them the passports or the boat papers. They have been cases of driver keeping them for ransom. It is very possible to do all the work yourself even with limited knowledge of Spanish. You only need to be patient. We met Mr. Tito. He is a local who speak well English and who will accompany you for 75$ taxis and photocopies included ((507) 6463-5009 titom13@hotmail.com). Since it is not very comfortable to anchor in Colon and Shelter bay marina take 1,25$/foot/day (ouch!), we left the boat in Portobelo and we took the bus to Colon to do the first step. Mr. Tito was waiting for us at the bus stop. He took us to make the proper photocopies (passeport, cruising permit, boat registrations) and then we took a taxi to the Port Authority to take an appointment to be measured. Note that we already had the cruising permit. If we didn't Mr. Tito would of taken us to that office too. So he will take care of the security at the entrance and discussing your appointment with the receptionist while you get to know the other navigators around. When we exit, we have a date and a phone number to call 24h prior to the appointment to confirm. On this day, you will have to reserve and pay for still with Mr. Tito, the needed material and personnel; each line is 15$, tires are 2$/ea and a line handler 75$. If you want, he will show you Club Nautico and then will leave you where you wish in Colon. If you go to the Port Authority by yourself, ask the taxi to wait for you because you will have a very hard time getting another one from there. Being anchored in Portobelo also permited to leave the boat under the watchfull eyes of Carol and Claus from Escapade (Canada) while we go and help our friends from Antouka cross the canal before us as line handlers.
The night before the measure, we moved the boat to the "Flat" anchorage. This is where two officials will get off their big boat on to yours to not only measure but give instruction on the crossing. They mostly check the length of the boat because over 50 feet, the price changes. The instructions are of the type: if you do not enough proper food to feed the advisors and he has to have some delivered, it will cost you 500$. They provide a 4 page document containing all the information. One of the two people who were supposed to visit our Bidule decided against it when he saw how low on the water we are compared to their boat. The fact that he was overweight and not very agile didn't help either. So Gaston had to board them to fill out the paper work. This step must only be done once in the life of a boat. They provide a identification number that will be use for any future crossing of the canal. Once the measure done, we moved the boat at anchor in front of "Club nautico". From there, a taxi arranged by Mr. Tito is waiting to take us to City bank to pay right away. By doing this, we can obtain a passage date in the next 48h thus avoiding spending much time at anchor in Colon. It is rolly, polluted and has much circulation. So for a less that 50 feet boat the prices are: 984$ for the crossing and 891$ for the deposit payable in cash only. If your bank cards have per day withdrawal limits, you should prepare in advance. Between 50 and 80 feet: 1484$ for the crossing and 891$ for the deposit still in cash. The price includes the advisors (or babysitters) who will help cross the canal. If the boat is more than 65 feet, it is possible that they will impose a pilot instead of a advisor which will of course cost more. The only way to get the deposit back is thought a bank transfer at the cost of 25$ (except for US bank accounts which has no charge). It is important to have with you all your bank account information as well as the bank transfer numbers. If everything goes well in the canal, the money will be returned in two or three weeks. The same evening of the payment, you will have to call a phone number given prior to make an appointment for the crossing of the canal.
For the next 24hours, we went shopping at the Super 99 which is very close to the anchorage and prepared food to feed all of our crew for two days. The night before, we welcomed Alex and Stephanie from the boat Antouka on board and called the office again to confirm the appointment. The next morning, José, our hired line handler, joined us. We choose to hire José because we didn't want to cross the canal a third time on another boat. We also found, Eric, the one hired by Antouka the previous week very nice. Mr. Tito recruits serious young men in their twenties. . Remember that there needs to be 4 line handlers and one captain on board. The advantage is that they already know what to do and prepare everything in advance for you. The rest of the time, they play around on Facebook with their cell phones. They don't speak much English so it is a good opportunity to practice Spanish and learn a bit more about the country. The rented equipment will arrive the day before the crossing. Mr. Tito is sometimes late on the delivery but you will get everything you need in time. It's much more stressful for us than for him or the line handlers.
Apparently, the usual way of proceeding is to send the advisors to the pleasure crafts in the middle of the afternoon (14h-15h) of the first day and head straight for the first three set of locks. We arrived on Gatun lake around diner time and where attached to a buoy for the night. The advisor didn't stay for diner. Before entering the first locks, they ask us to tie up two or three boats together and we remain tied up until we exit the third lock. It makes for interesting navigating. This keeps the boats far from the lock walls on each side. In these upward locks, we are behind the cargo ships. The next morning, provided nobody was bitten by a crocodile, the new advisors arrive between 6h and 6h30. The crossing of Gatun lake takes about 4h. For this part, we were very happy to have Oswald as an advisor. He is an engineer on the construction of the new canal who does crossings on weekends for fun. He had much interesting information to provide. The last three descending locks are done with the same procedures has the firsts but this time in front of the cargo ship. The advisor will get off under the Americas bridge; the line handler with the lines at the Balboa Yacht-club. A local will come pick up the later. You can also ask them to take the tires for 1$/ea. All is left now is to go anchor on one side or the other of Armadore and celebrate.
We only used one day of our stay in Panama City to visit to busy we where planning the crossing to Hawaii. The old Panama was nice but under renovation. I personally preferred the old Cartagena in Columbia. The people and not particularly warm and some of the employees of Albrook mall are downright rude. The taxi drivers are expensive. We did meet two who were more reasonable. Roosevelt (507-6513-6949) speaks perfect English which is useful when looking for parts. Diose only speaks Spanish but he understands what you want with very little words (507-6778-6399). It is possible to use public transport but the city is very big and lots of time will be lost. The crusers who spend much time here have put together a guide of all the services in PDF format. Just ask on one of the morning nets if someone has it. For navigation information and other, we found that "The Panama cruising guide" by Eric Bahaus (ISBN 978-9962-00-637-4) was very well done.
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