Adjective “causing or inducing awe; inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration or fear: an awesome sight.“
The Panama Canal (February 2024)
Ok, not to mess around, let’s start with transiting the Panama Canal. It was awesome.
This is Skana at Shelter Bay Marina on the Atlantic side of Panama while we were waiting and waiting and waiting for our turn through the Canal, the last group in the Oyster fleet to transit. A few days in, as I was walking back to the boat, I had one of those crystalizing moments when I overheard some cruisers say “wow, look at that amazing black boat. Isn’t she just beautiful?” With all the rush, rush, rushing up until this point, this stopped me in my tracks, and finally (finally!) it was sinking in that this magnificent yacht, shimmering in the dusky sky, was really mine and we were about to sail it around the world.
On the other side of the emotional spectrum, this marina used to be part of “The Canal Zone,” the American Navy Base and territory during the six decades it was governing Panama, including the quickly forgotten 1989 invasion. Lots of spooky wondering, strolling through the abandoned prisons, now populated by monkeys.
This is the Bridge of the Americas, alit by the early morning sun.
Then 10 days later, it was our turn! Full of anticipation, already on anchor outside of Shelter Bay, awaiting for our pilot to join Skana, the first of two Panamanians to shepherd us through the different lock systems.
Fortunately we rafted up with two other boats in our fleet, good pals Serafina and JaZsofi, the Canadians and Aussies, a united front of fun and shared purpose to get to the other side. (The Doors may have been played.)
Having these bad boy tankers behind and in front of us was truly awesome and definitely a little hair-raising. We had to be on our toes!
We all enjoyed geeking out about the Canal’s history, politics and engineering, with plenty of museums and centers to visit and learn from.
The highlights include:
- the sheer audacity of building this mega-project in the first place in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the culmination of years of (mostly French) equivocation on how to design it;
- the massive loss of life it exacted (+20k) in doing so (mostly non-white folks);
- the ecological decimation that ensued, of mountains and valleys, in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, forever altering this bioregion and the world;
- the financial and financing disasters endemic to its’ development, again the poor French got a bruising; .
- all resulting in some choice geopolitical power plays and ultimate US-led deal that gave rise to the birth of Panama as a nation and thus pivotal node in global supply chains and political geography.
The real life stuff of novels and thus good wonderment. Not coincidentally, we rewatched spy thriller, “The Tailor of Panama” (2001), with Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush and Jamie Lee Curtis which was co-written by John LeCarré .
And the drama continues. The Canal’s future story is very much in flux. If you haven’t been following this, it now faces some existential challenges to keep functioning with enough fresh water during climate change. Indeed, we waited ten days (fearing far worse) because the Canal Authority was restricting boats going through. It has been years of severe drought.
At Mire Flores, the last lock before we entered the Pacific, we were taken aback by the mass of tourists awaiting us in the blistering sun (about 35-37C/95+ F). As the locks slowly opened, an aluminum gate was removed and like livestock bolting from a pen, the heat-crazed crowd surged forward to get a closer look at us. Absurd as it was, we felt it only right that we play our part by blasting Van Halen’s “Panama” and performing some semblance of a dance on the foredeck. Our five-minute fans hooted in appreciation. (Our guests for the transit, in front, were Jackie’s good school friend Annika and her mother Lene.)
A long, intense, very hot day, and one not to forget.