Arriving in Panama!
By Amalia Infante
Nov 27, 10.00 am
After sailing the all night against the current following the beautiful tropical coastline of Panama, at 10 am in the morning, there she was, the vibrant big city of Panama
Our last miles in the Pacific have been a bit emotional remembering all things we have done, learn and experience. Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Canada, all the west side of Usa... We have done so much and we are carrying great memories that will stay with us for ever. The people we've met, the schools we visited, the extraordinary support we have received for our cause to be able to change the course of girls lifes. And all the sailing experience we gained going through all kinds of weather conditions!
And yes, finally we are here, in Panama, the country that changed the horizon and transformed the world map allowing us to be only 48 miles away from the Atlantic Ocean... when a year ago Maiden was starting the world tour!
The landscape is quite shocking and contrasts with the Jungled Islands, made with the rocks and sand removed to build canal and all the giant Cargo ships in the bay anchored waiting for their turn to pass the Canal. It gives you a great impression of how important is this channel for trading and boosting the global economy. The marine we were going was in one of them, in Flamenco Island, a fake island linked directly with the city through a beautiful highway over the water.
After a day going through inspections and getting all our bureaucratic work done,we were waiting for our turn to cross. Not as fast as we expected as big cargo have priority and next day it was a National Holiday (independence of Panama from Spain) but again we've got great support by the inspector and Alex our agent helped us to speed up with the process.
November 29th, 09.00pm
The night before we received a message that we needed to leave much earlier than we tought, so at 3.30 am we were leaving the dock starting our Panama Canal Crossing.
