Hey Y'all Karen and I just went through the Panama canal. This is the lady from NZ. and just finished a circle of the Atlantic ocean and are heading home. We were rafted up with this vessel through the chambers 2 by 2.

Here are a few photos of the locks as we were transiting through the first 3. The first 3 locks on the Gatun side are all in one with 3 chambers, each chamber raises your boat 28 feet. The lake is 84 ft. above sea level. The lines from the boats are put on a bollard on top of the wall and all the line handlers do is keep the slack out and the boats in the center of the chamber. Really easy.

Here we are getting locked into the first lock and the rest are just the same so I'll just show more photos.

This is what it looks like from the bottom going from one chamber to the next. You can see the line handlers walking our lines from one to the next.

Now there are a lot more photos of the crossing but this blog will not let me put them where I want them so if it seems a little screwy it's not my fault. We had a good time and spent the night in lake Gatun. I'm going to close out now because the photos are getting totally out of control. Tomorrow we have to go to town so it will be a couple of days before I get back.
See Y'all Down the Road.
Mike & Karen

OK, I know I promised to get back to the blog sooner than this but we have been hauled out and been to busy to do anything. Y'all who have or had a boat on the hard you know what it's like.
We have been waiting for 2 days to be put back in the water, the ship yard's tralier broke a hydraulic line and here in Panama that is a major part. If were not in a third world you just go to the auto parts store and get a new one.
We had to pull the engine out of the boat so I could fix the gear. While thinking about what I had to do, i needed new motor mounts so I ordered them from the States. Well I amost had a heart attack when FedEx wanted $582.00 to ship to Panama. The package weighed 8 pounds. We had 2 more packages to be shipped here and each one was at least that weight so it was cheaper to send Karen to the States to pick every thing up and put in luggage and fly back. She didn't mind because she spent 3 days with the grand kids and Michelle & James.
Getting back to what's going on now, if we get the boat back in the water today we can move out of this hotel room and back to our normal life, if you can say our life is normal.
Friday Karen & I are going to line handle on a sloop thats going through the canal. She will take plenty of photos and I will post next week.
See Y'all Down the Road,
Mike & Karen