Our Trilogy crew is approaching the Panama Canal… after crossing through, it’s Maui or bust!

Crossing Log:

Galley Officer Lol, 10/14/18 @ 15:36 hours

The last time I blogged on Thursday, 10/11, we had calm and fortunate seas, and thankfully these fabulous conditions continued throughout the night. Unfortunately the next morning on Friday, 10/12, the weather took a turn turn for the worse, the winds shifted, and sizable swells began to build, which made us have to reduce our speed to 10 knots. This weather unfortunately made us all a little queasy, but Kai informed us all that he was not sea-sick, only tired, and subsequently slept for every actual moment that he was not on watch. Katie and Shaw both entertained themselves on night watch by researching what animals sleep the most during the day, so they could compare Kai to that animal (once he actually woke up). To put things in perspective, in a day’s time between the six of us, everyone is assigned two 2-hour night watches and one 2-hour day watch, which means 18 hours “off” per day. After some internet sleuthing, they decided Kai would be closest to the common cat, which has been known to sleep a solid 18 hours a day.

Back to more serious matters… although everyone felt slightly nauseous from the inclement weather, no one lost their cookies (although appetites were definitely lost). Despite the queasiness, Nick’s ambition powered onward and upward so he decided to cook pasta to mix in with the veggies and marinara sauce that RaGhoul had previously prepared. I glanced up from my bunk while trying to get some respite from the rocking motion, and saw that Nick looked pretty excited to be preparing this food, and I thought to myself, WOW, this guy must really be into pasta. He proudly proclaimed that it was probably the most intense pasta situation he had ever been part of in his entire life (with our boat rocking and swaying heavily between the ocean swells), and he was clearly very excited about it. I couldn’t hold it in - I very loudly burst out laughing at Nick’s proclamation, and though I was nervous to wake up the crew, everyone else was exhausted enough to continue their sound sleep in their bunks.

At this point in the journey, I didn’t have too much more to report, other than the less than ideal weather and alarming amount of salt spray that entered the cabin. With the stormy weather, everyone layered up in their foul weather gear for the last portion of the 1,050 nautical mile voyage from St. Croix to the Eastern Edge of the Panama Canal. Just prior to entering the canal we were in and out of these squalls, although some sun did occasionally poke through, and Katie optimistically reminded us that you can't have rainbows without any rain! As we approached, we noticed that there were a LARGE number of cargo carriers, tankers, ferries, and car carriers anchored outside the Eastern entrance, waiting their turn to pass through the canal. As we also waited, our crew readied fenders and lines as Captain Whip pulled into the slip he had set up with his Panama Canal agent prior to arrival. Stepping foot on the dock, I realized that I definitely had to get my “land” legs back!

Below is the beautiful post-storm sky that we had a front row seat to, as we approached the Eastern entrance of the Panama Canal…

With our boat secured in our slip, it was now a waiting game (but a comfortable one!), as it usually takes around 2-3 days for clearance to proceed through the canal. With our late arrival last night, we had just enough time to grab dinner at the very reasonably priced Marina restaurant, which also had delicious food, we soon found out! We then all had the opportunity to take showers at the very nice Marina facilities, which felt AMAZING after only a mere four days at sea. Comfortably settled in, we watched a movie in the cabin of T4 in our bunks. Even the mosquitos were not an issue tonight, with a steady, calm breeze keeping them at bay! As I write at this moment in time, all the crew is snuggled up cozy in our bunks in the cabin - we had decided to close off the openings with tarps, successfully redirecting the air conditioning from the heads to the cabin, as it is quite hot & humid here on the Eastern edge of the Canal in Shelter Bay Marina.

The next morning, we fresh-water-rinsed Trilogy IV and wiped down the cabin, as she had accumulated quite a large amount of salt from all the spray and ocean water. We also took the opportunity to take care of some routine maintenance tasks, changing Racor fuel filters, changing transmission oil, clearing bilges of any debris, organizing the galley, consolidating/disposing of food, laundering our salty clothes and linens, etc. After all that, we enjoyed a delicious lunch and are now currently resting up for what awaits este tarde (for all of you that don’t know, that’s Spanish for “this afternoon”). ;-P

Stay tuned for more..

Edited by: Cyndie Ellis