What a day! Woke up at 0345 from my spot on the galley house above the scuttle wedged between the boat skid and the three boats up there and an 8 or 9ft drop. It was nice except my arms and legs went numb a few times for reasons unknown. At 0400 we weighed anchor and I again was in the chain locker, which I don't mind at all. I was there with WT and between flakes we had a good chat. We then steamed for the Canal (no way to sail here because of regulations and also the wind is opposite of ideal). A pilot boarded followed by line handlers and we on deck just stood clear of them as they did an incredible job at tossing the lines to the electric mules on each side of the locks. We were moved in, the gates closed, the water filled up, raising us about 30ft or so each time, and then we moved to the next one. It was quite a thing to behold this feat of engineering. After the Gatún locks, we made it to Gatún Lake, where we were surrounded by dense jungle. While here we took advantage of the fresh water and had our first and probably only fresh water power shower. There was really no work to do except for the 4-8s were posted to double lookouts forward, so I joined them on the focslehead and enjoyed the scenic ride. We swapped out our pilot and handlers at the end of the lake for new ones, and though only Liam had gotten a chance to converse with the first grop, quite a few of usdid with the second. However, the first group was classy and cool and professional; the second had the pasacables trying to sneakily sell us cheap Panama baseball hats, coins, keychains, and even some sex stamina enhancement herbal remedy things. They did this in the breezeways mostly, to stay out of sight of the pilot. I did speak with a few, but beyond a few basic questions about what we do, they were much more concerned with me hooking them up with some of our women. So, what the hell, it's good Spanish practice, right? Apparently we had a super fast transit of only eight or so hours (we expected fourteen). We came out on the Pacific side and steamed out to Isla Flamenco. We pulled in to the yacht club we were going to stay at, but there was a broken down large boat in our slot, so we dropped anchor right there pretty much blocking access to the harbor, and waited for it to move. When the call came to weigh anchor again, Mate Mike sent me to the chain locker with Jimmy, and I was to train him to flake chain properly. It's not terribly hard, but it's filthy work and if you do it wrong, all hell breaks loose next time we drop anchor. We pulled out of the harbor, then swung back in after they made space for us. I helped on the stern line and quarterspring when mooring, then taught Roselyn how to make chafe gear fast with marlin hitches and Chinese fingers. 12-4 has the watch tonight, but I'm galley so I only had to clean after dinner and do breakfast tomorrow. No night shift for me. I learned how to do a sounding with the lead from Logan at 2030 (low tide) and then did a workout. I also lashed my watch to my right as the watch band broke. We'll see how that holds. Tomorrow I'm off to Panama City, which looks like a metropolis from here.
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