The second most asked question people have about Virago’s September 2010 transit of the Panama Canal is: “What’s it like?” (Philosophical types will of course be reminded of Ernest Nagel’s 1974 paper “What is it like to be a bat?” where he argued that consciousness always has an irreducible subjective component beyond objective description.) I intend in this post just to present some pictures that re-evoke my emotional responses to the passage.
First, there was just the grandeur of the canal so well described in the book “The Path Between the Seas” by David McCullough that we had read to prepare for the transit. Here we approach the Peace Bridge built in 1927 to rejoined the country sundered by the Panama Canal in 1914.
When we first saw the locks, the elegance of the canal became apparent when we saw a sea going ship just ahead of us floating twenty five feet above our water level.
As we entered the first locks, the busyness of the canal that has taken over 960,000 vessels from one sea to the other in its nearly one hundred history came home to us as we shared a lock with one ship, two tugs, and one sport fisher.
Our biggest worry was hitting the sides of the locks. The hundred year old concrete and steel gates designed to withstand far tougher vessels than our glass reinforced plastic sailboat are brutal.
We took satisfaction in the fact that Virago could easily maintain the required eight knot official speed for transit in one day and that her thruster improves her maneuverability in tight spots. Here we see her churning he brown water from Lake Gatun that floats all the boats through the canal.
As I look back I am grateful for my crew, my advisor, my line handlers, the operators of the canal, and for those who bequeathed this wonder of the world to us today.
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