After a wonderful month in the San Blas islands, and much messing about in Portobelo and Shelter Bay, tomorrow we head to the Flats anchorage ready to transit the Panama canal later the same day. Its a time of much nervousness, preparation and excitement! The transit involves locking up through the Gatun Locks, likely after night has fallen. It takes about 90 minutes from leaving the Flats to reach the first lock and we have yet to find out how we will be configured. Its mostly likely that we will raft up, possibly with the very boat moored behind us in Shelter Bay marina - Nahoa. However, they have been told that their advisor is due at 2pm tomorrow, but ours is due at 6pm - so who knows! We will spend tomorrow night in Gatun lake, either anchored or on a buoy. Then we set off across the lake in the morning once a second advisor has joined us. It will take 6 hours under motor - no sailing unless it looks like you won’t make your slot due to being too slow. Then we lock down once through the Pedro Miguel locks, and onto the 2 locks that make the Miraflores set. The final gates open and we proceed into the Pacific and the start of our next big crossing. Top of our list will be dropping off our line-handlers, ropes and fenders - then we will try and get a mooring at Balboa Yacht Club for a few days. Its very busy there at present though, so it may not be possible. In which case, we’ll be anchoring down at La Playita. In order to get some experience, I line-handled for friends on Bla Ellinor a few weeks ago - so I have some idea of what to expect. It was incredibly noisy sharing a lock with a ship, and quite a bit of current against us, though the wind was sure pushing us into the lock. In turn, our line-handlers are skippers and crew who have yet to transit and want to get the same experience. Anthony sailed the Atlantic with us and is joining us for a fair chunk of the pacific (7 months worth). Its great to have him back onboard. Matthew also did the same rally across the Atlantic as us, and he’s also transiting the canal on El Mundo in a week or so. Paul and Lesley we know from when we both had powerboats and met in Weymouth over a decade ago! Now they’re here on their 50ft St Francis catamaran and are going to line-handle for us in advance of their transit on the 10th. Wish us luck!