Teis

From The San Blas to The Panama Canal

Those who have been through it know: the Panama Canal is the gateway to the Pacific! The Teis crew is now sailing on the biggest ocean of them all.

Teis

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Published 27/05/2025

By Gilles Ruffet

Issue: 202

Published: july / aug. 2025

Discover this issue

Who: Catherine & Michel
Where: From the San Blas to the Panama Canal
Multihull: Outremer 51
Blog: www.teis5199.com

We sailed for 24 hours from Rosario Island to the San Blas and, surprisingly, didn’t encounter a single storm overnight. As the rainy season comes to an end, so do the thunderstorms, which we no longer see offshore or on land. We have arrived at Isla Pinos. We’re all alone. The anchorage was very relaxing, but the water was murky, so we didn’t take a dip. The Kunas sail in pirogues built from old coconut palms that have fallen down. La Comarque Guna Yala is a native province made up of 365 coral islets.

The archipelago is located on Panama’s north coast, some 65 nm (120 km) east of Colon and between 2½ and 7½ nm (4 - 14 km) from the coast. Only 60 islets are inhabited. We dropped anchor at Mamitupu. Pablo and his wife made us feel very welcome. Pablo lived in London for six years. He runs two restaurants on the island and a coconut oil factory. We visited the community with him. He showed us the different huts: the traditional hut, or mud house, with a fire on the floor and hammocks for sleeping and napping, the ceremonial hut and the school, etc. The head of the village has many powers, including that of defining the rules for putting out fires in the evening. He can also approve or disapprove of a divorce. Molas (embroidered textiles) are made by hand. It takes around two months to make one. The women are dressed in traditional outfits. We then anchored at Snug, with a few other boats, before heading for Colon, sailing from anchorage to anchorage until we reached the entrance to the Panama Canal. In anticipation of busy days ahead, we had prepared the meals for the next two days in advance, as we had been instructed to feed the two people who would be with us on the catamaran - the pilot and the extra crew member. We arrived in Shelter Bay at 5:30 p.m. to pick up the pilot. We hoisted the anchor, slipped under the Atlantic Bridge and began the journey through Gatun’s three ascending locks at night, under floodlights. It’s an impressive and magnificent sight. We were alongside an Australian yacht, and behind a Chinese container ship. After the locks, we sailed for an hour to an anchorage on Lake Gatun. And there, as we maneuvered to get alongside a buoy, we noticed that the port engine was spinning in the wind, as if it had no propeller. We went to bed a little dispirited, hoping for a solution the next day. At dawn, Michel dived down to take a look. Our fears were confirmed: we’d lost a prop! Would the second pilot let us sail on a single engine? We explained our problem to him, and told him about the difficulties we were likely to encounter when maneuvering. As far as he was concerned, we were good to go. We crossed Lake Gatun for around 25 miles, where the vegetation was beautiful and the jungle came right up to the shore. We passed huge container ships. We prepared to go through the downstream locks of Pedro Migel and Miraflorès alongside an American tourist boat. With only one engine, Michel struggled to keep the catamaran in the locks. We then anchored in Playita Marina. We’d made it! We had passed through the Panama Canal. Now it’s the Pacific Ocean which awaits us...