Pacific Crossing Day 10

Tonight’s post is all about the pretty, pretty Pacific. Flattery may get us somewhere.

With the engines off after four days of motoring through the ITCZ, it is finally just us and the sea. It’s a similar feeling to when you are at a crowded party and finally sneak off to an upstairs bedroom with the one person you wanted to talk to the whole time anyway. Ahhhh. Now I have you all to myself!

All of our senses note the difference. Touch is the only sense that hasn’t changed for the better. With a 7-8 ft wave rolling every 7 seconds right across our hulls, first lifting one and then the other, the simple task of walking across the saloon, legs akimbo, evokes aching in every sore ab and leg muscle, every bruise.

However, the salty sea wind has put the stench of diesel far in our wake. Without the diesel tang in our nostrils, we can finally taste our food. The malevolent rumbling of the engines has been replaced by the pulsing sibilance of the waves breaking under our hulls. But it is our vision that is most enhanced with the uptick in winds, as throughout the day they are treated to a variety of sights both above and below the stark division between the sky and the sea.

Our view is dominated by a multitude of variations of the color blue. The sea and the sky rotate through all possible mixtures of blue with white and black every hour, as if King Neptune cannot stop playing with filters in Photoshop. Watching the changes at twilight especially is akin to listening to a symphony, with movements changing with time characterized by different cloud cover and light.

To be completely surrounded by this versatile color is likely one reason the sea calls to people. Neuroscience has shown that looking at blue activates arousal networks in the brain, focusing attention. Yet at the same time, psychology research has demonstrated blue’s ability to trigger a sense of calm. This odd mixture of focus and calm is rare these days, as typically we are called upon to concentrate when under pressure. Usually there is no room in the mind at that time for a sense of peace. Yet Mel has noticed that this meditative state is exactly what settles in about 15 minutes into her watch, as she scans the sky and the sea. It is an appropriate state to be in when crossing oceans, when the ability to respond quickly to calamity in a calm and thoughtful way is crucial. For a doctor previously pushed to focus for 12 hours a day, always with an un-calm background concern that she would be unable to meet the overwhelming demands on her mind and her time, this calm is healing.

Oh look! Mel just figured out why they call it The Pacific!

Boat stuff: We are over 1500 nm out of Panama. Our current target is Henderson Island, in the Pitcairn group, a little over 2000 nm away. At this rate, we might get there in 10-11 days. The trade winds are between 14-18 knots apparent, but at the moment they are on our beam. We are making 7-8.5 knots to our target.

Today’s calamity: We had to restart the autopilot and chartplotter after a blip of some kind that put steering out of our control for a minute. All is well now. On the morning rounds, Greg saw the ring for our first reef was about to tear off the sail, as the straps that were meant to secure the ring better to the main had not been reattached by the sailmaker in Sint Maarten when we had them modify the reefing system. We broke a rule: always double-check someone else’s work. Now we are double-reefed and a little slower, but the ride is smoother, so we’ll take it!

Dinner tonight: Chicken pot pie, using a rotisserie chicken that Mel shredded up and vacuum-packed before we left. Next time Mel will get 8 rotisserie chickens. It is so much easier than cooking chicken from scratch!

Entertainment: Rocking out to Mel’s Sailing playlist, which is probably the main reason Spotify thinks she is 77 years old.

For the nerds, this article about the impact of color on the brain via studying EEG waves was researched by physicists and neuroscientists and gives you hope that humanity is not entirely doomed, as clearly there are still some smart people left.

Here are some recent photos. Look at all the shades of blue!

This morning (April 17), a rainbow burst from a sunshower and pointed the way straight to the equator. It is easy to make the weather at sea magical. The rainbow must have been monitoring the GPS coordinates of Jerry’s chartplotter closely, as at approximately 9 AM, Jerry’s latitude was officially 0° (zero degrees)! To celebrate his official entry into the South Pacific, and to do what they could about the lack of wind, his crew honored King Neptune in the time-honored fashion of an Equator Crossing Ceremony. After researching naval crossing ceremonies, Mel devised her own ceremony with considerably less flogging, crawling, toxic liquids, and grease. After all, living on and constantly repairing a boat has pretty much taken care of all that already.

This ceremony, practiced by various navies around the world over the years, converts inexperienced sailors, called Pollywogs, into thick-skinned, carapaced Shellback turtles. Apparently, performing this unnatural transmutation of an immature frog into an ancient turtle in the backyard of the Galapagos has yet to strike anyone as odd. Hmmm, Mel takes that back. Poor Charles Darwin had to undergo the rougher version of the Crossing Ceremony himself in 1832. With his face covered in “pitch and paint” before being dunked in a vat of water, he was probably smart enough to hold his tongue.

Here is the transcript of our crossing ceremony. Enjoy!

The Intrepid Jerry’s Equator Crossing Ceremony

Materials required: Slingshot (if you have one), didgeridoo, ukulele, ukulele tabs to the music selection, comb kazoo, 3 paper sailor hats labelled, “Pollywog.”

If the MC is also a Pollywog, consider making a crown and triton to be held by the MC when they are conducting the ceremony and removed (or ignored) when they are performing the tasks.

Ceremony

We are gathered here today to mark SV The Intrepid Jerry’s crossing of the equator, the middle of the earth. The crew of this boat consists of three Pollywogs, sailors who have not yet crossed the equator by sea.

To ensure a good passage, and to bring back the winds, Neptune’s Court demands tribute via the performance of difficult tasks, according to his whim.

We Begin with the Feats of Strength!

The first task is to honor the Equator by learning some geophysics!  As you can see, King Neptune has a twisted sense of humor.

Task 1.  At the equator the earth is 21,639 nautical miles in circumference, about 27 miles larger than the perpendicular circumference passing through the poles. To honor the Equator, use your seasoned sailor abs to hold a plank for 27 seconds, 1 second for each extra mile.

Task 2. Since Earth is an oblate spheroid, at the Equator the centrifugal force of Earth’s rotation is maximal, working against gravity and causing objects to weigh up to 0.5% less than at the poles. To represent your loss of 1 pound for every 200 pounds, give Neptune 20 lunges and 20 squats without touching anything or falling.

Task 3. At the equator the sun plunges almost straight into the sea when it rises and sets, instead of transitioning at an angle. This produces the shortest twilight period in the world, around 25 minutes today. To honor the equator for this speed, slingshot or throw a rock, coin, or other appropriate Coast-Guard-approved sacrifice off the boat so that it travels far and falls from the sky straight into the sea. 

Task 4. Your shadow is the shortest it will be on the planet at solar noon today at the equator. To represent this, you must now block the sun’s rays by wearing this silly hat.

The Pollywogs don their silly hats.

And Now, The Feats of Skill! 

King Neptune has a temper.  A good sailor’s best defense against the ravages of the sea is good knot-tying skills.

Instructions: Each Pollywog is given 2 ropes. They will each be assigned 3 of the following knots to tie, randomly picked (via a roll of a die, or a wheel-spinning phone app): bowline, cleat hitch, rolling hitch, zeppelin bend, round turn and two half hitches, Ashley stopper.

For each Pollywog, the following things happen:

Just before this test, record the true wind speed.  All three knot-tying tasks must be completed before the current true wind speed in minutes has elapsed. For example, if the wind speed is 8 knots, they have 8 minutes to tie all three knots. If Neptune is in a good mood, there will be lots of wind and this task will be easier.

Start a timer set to this speed.

Spin the wheel or roll a die to select the first knot.  After the judge confirms proper completion, repeat for two more knots. Grog Knots or another reference is permitted. 

If the tasks are not completed on time, the Pollywog must start over.

And Now for the Music of the Seas!

Congratulations! Almost all tasks have been completed! King Neptune loves a good sea song. You must now serenade him with beautiful music.

King Neptune has selected the following song: Southern Cross, by Crosby, Stills, & Nash

Greg: To please King Neptune, you will play the didgeridoo to honor the South Pacific.

Mel: To please Queen Amphitrite, you will play the ukulele to honor the North Pacific.

Jeremy: To please Davy Jones, you will play this kazoo to honor the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

Karaoke version of Southern Cross.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You are now all Trusty Shellbacks, your skin thickened by the trials of the sea. You have joined the Empire of King Neptune, Imperium Neptuni Regis, and are hereby initiated into the Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep.

Three Hoorahs!

Finally, King Neptune takes tips. If you feel he is deserving, throw a coin of your choice, or yourself, into the sea.

Optional Activities

You have the option of receiving a hand-drawn Sharpie tattoo of a shellback turtle to mark the occasion.

You may take a swim.  Gaze into the depths of the ocean, 9000 feet down. Don’t let go of the rope!

And Later…Cake!!!

How quickly Jerry’s fortune can change!

The Intrepid Jerry is now a couple days out from Panama on his voyage to French Polynesia. Yesterday, Mel planned a very positive post, excited to report that Jerry’s crew successfully hoisted, doused, and rehoisted their brand new Quantum A3 asymmetrical spinnaker without incident, mostly. (They are not counting the bruising of a redhead. You count that, and nothing on a boat with redheads goes without incident.) Also, their new method of employing a quick-release shackle to free the tack before dousing went flawlessly. Nevertheless, Mel still eyed the spinnaker with suspicion. She thought something other-worldly must be manipulating the Laws of Spinnakers in Jerry’s favor. She attributed this luck to their fourth crewmember: The Great Blargh.

The Great Blargh’s role as good luck charm was correlated with a nice Atlantic crossing back in 2017. With Chief Morale Officer Penelope ashore at the moment, his services were needed for this voyage, and yesterday he was recommissioned, starting at Mate level. He’s going to have to earn his promotions.

Unfortunately, shortly after his appointment as Chief Mishap Deterrent, Calamity struck. Just 24 hours into the crossing, Mel discovered black mold all over her carrots and excessively warm temps in 2 of her 3 refrigeration units. Mel was reluctant to accuse Blargh of slacking off on the job, mainly because he just started back, and also because this problem probably stemmed from her own error of overstuffing the RV-sized fridge and freezer with provisions for 30 days.

Bored with messing just with the quartermaster, Calamity then moved on to the rigging. This morning, with a BAM!! originating in the heavens, the spinnaker halyard (the rope holding the sail up) chafed through at the top of the mast, and the whole sail came tumbling down. Greg and Jeremy strained their already protesting core muscles, sore from adapting to 3-5 ft seas, as they pulled the intact sail back on deck, weighed down by the 30 gallons of seawater gulped down by the dousing sock, which bears a striking resemblance to a feeding whale shark. Pull! Pull! Pull! And the carcass is now drying in the front cockpit.

For some reason this ordeal put Mel in the mood for a sea shanty.

Mel misses cruising with her kids. Crossing oceans with kids was more fun. Mel had an excuse to make a daily video about boat life starring an obese owl and cook up silly things like good luck charms. This time around, it is harder to blame her weirdness and affinity for stuffed animals on motherhood.

This embarrassing fact nevertheless did not stop Mel from attempting to appease Blargh on his first day on the job, as it was a doozie.

Let’s hope Blargh likes slightly warm cheese sticks.

Announcement: For those who prefer updates via WordPress and my website, this is a reminder that you can now view my Facebook posts without going to Facebook by checking my Social Media page, which is also accessible via the top menu of the burnettsahoy.com website. I will occasionally post some videos on Facebook and Instagram, depending on my whims, so remember to check that page! I posted a video today.

Boat stuff: Made about 355 nm in 48 hours. Downwind, mostly 12-17 kts apparent, but currently petering out as we approach the wind-less bald spot of the Pacific.
Dinner: Meatloaf.
Entertainment: Mel is learning French with Pimsleur and is practicing letting her tongue loll around in the doldrums of articulation.

Two days ago Jerry’s crew, exhausted after three days of project completion, provisioning, and stowing, undid numerous chafed cleat hitches and bowlines to free Jerry from his marina bonds! It was just in the nick of time, too, as the docklines were threatening to pop all at once.  Jib unfurled, motors humming, Jerry bobbed in joy through the Bay of Panama despite the minimal wind, passing numerous tankers and cargo ships awaiting their Panama Canal transits to the Caribbean. Unfortunately, his playtime was brief, as one hour later the Burnetts dropped the hook in an anchorage at Taboga Cay, just a little south of Panama City.

Why did Jerry stop?  Why is he not making his way to Pitcairn Island, in the middle of the Pacific?  There’s a massive CAPE out there in the sky, and it’s scaring all the boats away.

CAPE is a new vocabulary word for Mel. She has no idea if this is a new thing to the world, or just her. Because it has to do with weather. Despite numerous attempts over the years to familiarize herself with meteorology, Mel has failed to acquire much knowledge of the field.  For whatever reason, reading or watching a video about shifting and interacting air masses has a soporific effect on her, to the extent that after her perimenopause started, one of the more fail-safe ways to finally fall asleep was to take a melatonin and read about the weather. It is akin to the soothing vibrations of an airplane engine: “Fronts are boundary lines between warm and cold air masses, where rising, turbulent air causes shifts in temperature, wind, and precipitat….ZZZZZZZZZZ.”

But CAPE keeps her up.  Since Mel is married to a pilot, who gets excited about weird-ass things like Skew-T Log-P diagrams, Mel now knows what CAPE is. It is all about energy! A high CAPE means the air mass has the potential to generate thunderstorms of great power.  And right now a big, fat CAPE is sitting between Jerry and the Trade Winds, like an oversized pimento stuffed in an olive of no wind.

Not exactly interested in undergoing hardship if it can be avoided, Jerry’s crew is hanging out in the islands of the Pacific side of Panama for now. After the frenzy of prepping over the last few weeks, it is nice to rest.  Weather and provisioning aside, we are telling ourselves that we a doing a “Hudson’s Bay Start”.  Historically, this was a smart way to begin your fur trading expedition. You finish provisioning and then take your canoe a little bit into the stream for the night, giving your brain the opportunity to run its own list when you are still able to go back for your forgotten keys. Speaking of that, we should probably get some more oranges…

 The earliest we leave for our crossing to Pitcairn Island, which is about 4000 nm away, or 24-30 days sailing, would be this Saturday. Or maybe Sunday. We’ll keep you posted!  For now, enjoy some pics of prepping!

The Intrepid Jerry is in Panama City recovering from an uncomplicated delivery through a long narrow channel that birthed him into life in a new ocean, the mighty Pacific! Enjoying a well-deserved rest, Jerry is now swaying on mooring lines that creak their protest whenever the La Playita Marina waters cycle through the incredible shrinking and swelling of liquid mass necessary to generate its 16ft tidal range.  Jerry’s crew have found it best to time provisioning runs by these tides, a lesson learned when they chose to cart a 40-lb bag of ice down an almost vertical incline to the floating docks at low tide. Ice well in hand, Mel finally has time to reflect on their transit through one of the world’s great engineering marvels.

First, some background. Before their Panama Canal transit, Mel did some history research.  This included listening to the abridged (8 hours!) audiobook of David McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas. Not all that interested in civil engineering, political maneuvering, or fundraising, Mel was delighted to find that this book also gave interesting portrayals of some of the key people behind the canal’s construction.  This includes the charismatic Ferdinand de Lessups, best known for orchestrating France’s failure to build the canal by convincing politicians, investors, and even himself that, as a skilled fundraiser, his judgment regarding the canal’s construction surpassed those of his engineer advisors.  It also discusses how Panama owes its nationhood to Teddy Roosevelt, who “took the isthmus” from Colombia by wielding his “big stick” in a three-day military maneuver.  Quite an aggressive move for a famous tree-hugger!

The Panama Canal was now more interesting. Mel thought she might ponder Teddy Roosevelt a bit as she passed through the locks. But these characters were a little abstract and not particularly inspiring, and Mel wanted to be uplifted as she experienced one of humanity’s more ambitious attempts to leave its mark upon the planet.

Then she discovered the SS Richard Halliburton.

Richard Halliburton (no relation to the oil company) was a man after Mel’s own heart, having been over-educated at Princeton only to disappoint his family by traveling around the world and writing about it. A true adventurer, Richard was not satisfied with traveling on well-worn paths, instead choosing the wild and crazy route. One of the most entertaining Wikipedia pages Mel has read in a long time notes that his unusual gift for concocting creative journeys led to such adventures as flying around most of the world in an open cockpit biplane, being paid for a plane ride with shrunken heads, living as a castaway on purpose à la Robinson Crusoe in Tobago, and crossing the Alps à la Hannibal on an elephant.  A socialite who was friends with many of the influencers of his day, he of course wrote books about all of this, including the stunt most relevant to this post: swimming the entire course of the Panama Canal. His popular book about his trip, New Worlds to Conquer, published in 1929, is available free online in the Internet Archive.

So, to honor a fellow travel blogger, Mel will invite you all to raft up with Jerry and the SS Richard Halliburton as they prep for and transit the Panama Canal together.

Let’s start with Richard. Before his swim, Richard climbed Ancon Hill to get the lay of the land around the Canal, and he had a view remarkably similar to what he would see today:

I reached the top to find the view enchanting. I could see for miles around—the blue Pacific— the jungle—the Spanish city—the traffic of ships, ships, ships, specks on the horizon, steaming past the islands in the outer bay, crowding into the harbor from a hundred nations and a thousand ports, waiting to climb the magic steps and descend upon the other Ocean. Inland they sailed up the channel toward the Miraflores locks—battleships, tankers, tramps, huge long liners, sailboats, tugboats, freight boats, every flag, every color, the endless pageant steaming up the blue fiord through the sunshine on toward the most romantic voyage granted the ships of the sea.

Richard decided then and there to make his crazy swim idea a reality. Any good canal transit demands planning and logistics, and so while Richard was sweet-talking the canal authorities into stopping ship traffic while he slowly side-stroked through the locks, The Intrepid Jerry was working with an advisor to coordinate the two line handlers, one canal advisor, multiple fenders, and the giant lines required by the Canal Authority for their transit.

Just before the transit, given the possible need to provide up to three hot meals to a total of six people aboard, Jerry’s crew furiously provisioned with enough food for a 5-day offshore.  That night Mel prepped her mother-in-law’s breakfast ham casserole and her own chicken curry so they could be deployed in thirty minutes, keeping all the ingredients for lasagna rolls in her back pocket should the crew become ravenous.  Turns out that the breakfast casserole would have sufficed!

Richard’s preparation went a little differently. He went to a cabaret in Colon and partied all night. Of course he did.  There he met a “little wag” named Isabella, who asked him why he wanted to swim the canal despite his poor swimming skills.  His answer resembles the answer we give people when they ask why we cruise:

How could I tell her why? I didn’t know myself—the difficulty of it—the novelty of it—the drama of it—the appeal of a thing so powerful and so beautiful—the sport—the urge—the dream —the great adventure that would not pass. I couldn’t say it all intelligibly in English, much less Spanish. So I pantomimed wheels around my head and said “cuckoo,” and she understood.

Even in the modern age, the idea of traveling via ship through the Panama Canal evokes romantic excitement. Throughout these last few weeks at Shelter Bay, Mel has witnessed a universal dreamy expression settle on the faces of sailors discussing their upcoming transit.  Despite acknowledging this excitement, Mel found it hard to put into words what made passing through the canal so amazing. In the locks, she would discover the answer.

Before her epiphany, on Saturday, Jerry’s crew learned they were assigned the one-day transit format, which meant their day would begin around 4 AM Sunday, March 22. They would complete their 10-12 hour transit by 3:30 PM the same day. This was a tight schedule, as Jerry’s arrival and departure at each lock was booked by the minute.

Jerry’s day began in the dark. In the wee morning hours, their agent, Roy, dropped off the fenders, lines, and two line handlers, one of which was his son, Roy. Jerry then motored through Limon Bay, where a fast-approaching vessel expertly came alongside and dropped off their canal advisor, Roy.  Mel’s half-asleep brain appreciated the simplicity of this.

Meanwhile in 1928, Richard was swimming through the same bay, dodging typhoid and working on building his endurance, which would have improved quicker had he not gone partying every night at the clubs.

At last, after watching the sun come up behind the Atlantic Bridge and rafting up with the Leopard 40 catamaran Cosmos, Jerry approached the three Gatun Locks that would stepwise lift the twinned boats up 85 feet, more than 6 stories, above the Caribbean Sea.

Just as Jerry was rafted up to another catamaran, back in 1928 the SS Halliburton was not alone in his transit.  He had hired a rowboat, Daisy, manned by a humongous armed sergeant to protect him from barracudas and crocodiles.

When Richard finally reached the first step of the “magic stairs” of the Gatun locks, he got out and discussed his plans with the “magician” gatekeeper of the locks.

“Do you see all this?” the magician repeated. “Look out the window there.” The majestically beautiful thirty-thousand-ton California, the hugest passenger ship ever built in America, was ascending the magic stairs. “It takes all this’”—he swept his hand across the ocean of engines, down toward the California and the three one-thousand-foot chambers—‘‘to lock you through. It will take nine million cubic feet of water three times displaced to raise you into the lake.

After expressing his annoyance at having to stop ship traffic for him, the gatekeeper mentioned fees, and Richard was prepared with his response.

“Governor Walker and I agreed I was to pay like all other ships—according to my tonnage. I’m the S. S. Richard Halliburton, registered in Memphis, Tennessee. Length, five feet ten inches; beam, one foot; tonnage, one hundred and forty pounds—that’s one-thirteenth of one ton.”

“One-thirteenth of one ton, eh.” He got down his tables. “You’re the smallest ship in the history of the Panama Canal.” And then after a bit of calculation: “You owe me thirty-six cents.”

We paid $4500.

At last, Jerry & Cosmos, and Richard & Daisy, maneuvered into the Gatun locks. With ship traffic stopped for him, Richard missed out on the excitement of being instructed to approach a giant cargo ship, its massive stern looming higher and higher into the sky as Roy the advisor encouraged Greg to motor closer and closer.  In the end, Jerry and Cosmos were situated uncomfortably in what must have been a huge blind spot of a metallic behemoth that, once retired from duty, could easily play the part of the whale in the space opera-version of Moby Dick. 

Not needing line handlers, Richard also did not experience one of the more stressful parts of a canal transit: the attachment of the boat to the canal via lines. To accomplish this, a canal worker positioned thirty feet above the water hurtles a lead ball with a spindly line at your boat, repeating this maneuver until someone, hopefully a trained line handler, finally catches it.  That’s right. Your boat gets fly-fished. It is quite terrifying to be the fish. In our case, the first throw missed, and the lead ball thunked against the side of the boat, making a sound terrifying to anyone with a fiberglass hull.  Fortunately, there was no damage. Mel instantly regretted not taping out a giant bullseye on the hull so she could score the throws.  That first throw?  Zero points, Miguel.  Zero.

After a couple more tries, the line is caught, Daniel the line handler hooks another rope into it, and eventually Jerry is moored to the wall. The crews’ excitement builds, and they search the walls for signs of rising water to mark their ascension. After what seemed like forever, the floodgates underneath the lock finally open, releasing a cargo-ship-sized mass of fresh Gatun lakewater to fill the lock and then flow down to the Caribbean Sea, free at last.

Being embedded in the canal itself, Richard had a more visceral experience of going through the Gatun locks:

Once more the magician in the tower raised his wand, and opened not the gates but the doors of the three great conduits, each the size of a Hudson River tube, which allows the water to flow in underneath from the upper lock into the lower. Gravity is the chief engine. When the levels of the two locks become the same, the gates open again and the ship glides on. The inflow is very violent and caused such whirlpools and suctions that I was forced to hold on to the Daisy [his safety rowboat] as the submarine geysers boiled up and lifted, lifted me. It was a most dramatic experience to look down the vast chamber and realize what was happening: this entire rock-walled lake, and two more like it, being filled and emptied that this infinitesimal speck upon its surface might climb the magic stairs! What sensation could approach that of feeling one’s self carried up by these superhuman forces just as if one were the biggest battleship on earth, cruising forth to fight the battles of the nation, or a great liner laden with a thousand passengers.

The idea of sharing the same forces meant to move battleships was one of the reasons Richard was driven to swim the Canal.  It was in the locks that Mel realized another reason why witnessing this particular example of civil engineering was so compelling. Most of the massive constructions on the planet that took thousands of people years to design and build are static. You experience them by looking at them, getting a thrill from comparing the size of the monolith to your own tiny structure, and finally grasping the huge scale of the enterprise that built it. This realization is a worthwhile experience to seek out, as the tears that rolled down Mel’s cheeks upon viewing Mount Rushmore and the Hoover Dam attest. However, transiting the Canal eclipses all of these emotions, as it is interactive, an advantageous feature in the modern age.  You experience the canal in space AND time, just as you would experience a living, breathing thing, and a twelve-hour experience of a 50-mile transit leaves a big footprint in your memory.

The Canal is also a compelling example of how technology can be beautiful. Witnessing a 125-year-old mechanical system skillfully shift around gigantic amounts of water in a deliberate way, all so humanity can subvert the whim of the stubborn land mass of the South American continent in order to connect people more directly across the globe, highlights some of the good things about our species in an age that recently has brought out a lot of the bad.

After transiting the three lifting locks, which were a little fuller than usual due to Mel’s tears of joy, Jerry spent a few hours crossing Gatun Lake, well above sea level. As everyone on the boat dozed for a few hours, Greg was at the helm with canal advisor Roy, who for unclear reasons insisted Jerry almost kiss every red buoy on the way to the next set of locks.  

Richard of course did not get as much sleep as Jerry’s crew, as he would hit the clubs every night on his multi-day swim through the lake.  One night, Isabella noted his severe sunburn and gave him a parasol for protection, which was carried by Sergeant Wright, who, as I plunged in for the twenty-four-mile grind across the [Gatun] lake, raised Isabella’s pink sunshade above his pine-tree frame and settled back into the boat to watch for crocodiles.

We are fortunate that Richard took the time to construct a map of his journey.

Richard’s progress across the lake was marred by an infected sunburn, a close encounter with a freighter, and numerous crocodiles, which Sergeant Thomas aboard Daisy dispatched handily.

Finally Jerry made it to the last three locks for his descent into the mighty Pacific.  This time he was rafted up to Cosmos and a multi-story tourboat, and the tourists proceeded to observe Jerry’s crew as the crazy anthropological specimens they are.  Once again there was a delay after the boats were connected, a delay they were all thankful for once the reason for it was revealed. Slowly behind them loomed the massive Magdalena Schulte cargo ship, which Jerry had surprisingly lapped in the lake, who thankfully approached Jerry’s stern cautiously to prevent the mass of water it displaced from lifting the rafted boats up and shoving them against the gates. This was especially important in these last three locks, as the attraction and tides of the Pacific prompted a brisk forward current that the lines and engines strained to resist.

Richard’s thoughts: The Miraflores locks are even more stupendous than those at Gatun. The gates here are eighty five feet high and doubly strong to resist the tremendous Pacific tides. When the water in the last chamber had been lowered to sea level, and these last and greatest gates of all began to swing wide, I plunged in from the Daisy and, when the jaws were no more than fifteen feet apart, was catapulted through them by the rush of the swirling water, for the tide was going full speed out to sea.

Transiting the last three locks, interrupted briefly by the Miraflores Lake, happened in the blink of an eye. As Jerry dropped with the draining water in the locks, it was as if the walls were rising all around us. After the water level stabilized, an awed silence descended on the hundreds of people on the rafted boats and Miraflores viewing platform as the final double-gates opened and released the boats into the Pacific.

Meanwhile, Richard still had some swimming to do to the Balboa Yacht Club. Almost to the finish line, barracudas conspired to cut his eight-day trip short:

There was a wild splash in the water ten feet ahead, a wild yell from the sergeant, and I was dragged into the boat with such violence I thought the Daisy had run over me. Barracudas! …The sergeant in a cold perspiration from anxiety, stood up and lashed the water ahead and behind with—in desperate need —our pink parasol, letting forth with each lash a shout that must have driven even the barracudas in terror out to sea…And thus did this yelling, ocean-thrashing, parasol-wielding, oar-hugging, barracuda-fleeing outfit sideswipe across the line.

Kicking herself for not getting a pink parasol to brandish in Richard’s honor at the end of their own transit, Mel and Jerry’s crew nevertheless emerged from the canal ecstatic. Jerry was finally in a new ocean, with new worlds to explore, and new adventures on the horizon!  For his part, Richard furiously blogged his experience and completed his map. Task completed, he was unable to bask too long in his accomplishment. His drive to explore new worlds was too strong, and he was not one to live in the past. He went on to explore South America in a quest for Incan gold, meet the President of Peru, and adventure throughout South America.

Those who like happy endings, or who get a little nervous about our future plans to sail the Pacific, should not research what happened to Richard in the end.

Meanwhile, Jerry’s crew as well are looking to the future. Their long-stay visa for French Polynesia has been approved! Greg, Mel, and Jeremy are finishing up projects and provisioning and will begin to look for a weather window. They are considering targeting Pitcairn Island and eventually, the Gambiers. Who can resist exploring black pearl farms? Mel will keep you posted! Farewell, the SS Richard!