1/30: The Bay of Portobelo seen from one of its several forts.
2/30: Portobelo's pilgrimage church...
3/30: ...famous for its Cristo Negro.
4/30: Old Spanish custom house.
5/30: Panama's famous chicken buses: old US school buses colourfully painted, usually packed full, and blaring earsplitting music.
7/30: 90% of our time in Portobelo the weather looked like this...
9/30: The anchorage off Club Nautico in Colon is frightfully near the cruise ship terminal.
10/30: In the evening Astro, our first advisor for the canal transit, came aboard in Colon's Flats anchorage.
12/30: We went in a packet with a big catamaran in the middle and s/v Spruce on the other side.
13/30: Strong currents and eddies in the first lock.
14/30: At least one of our line handlers, Marian from s/v Zenna, is working hard ;-)
15/30: We spent the night alongside Spruce in the Gatun Lake and were waitiing for our second advisor at dawn.
16/30: Our second advisor Francisco.
17/30: Racing across Lake Gatun to reach the next locks in time.
20/30: All clear aboard Spruce :-)
21/30: The helpers throw messenger lines with monkey fists to the boats...
22/30: ...which are used to pull the strong lines up from the boats.
25/30: These locomotives are used for the big ships.
26/30: Harald from s/v Tagtraeumer needs to keep quite some tension in his line.
27/30: The gates of the last lock just opened--Pacific, we are coming!
28/30: Tme to celebrate!!!
29/30: Leeloo was hiding most of the time (she does not like other people aboard), so now she needs to check where we went.
30/30: Hello Panama City!