Captain's Log

May 16, 2006

0200 Monday, the Golden Bear rounded Punta Mala and made its first contact with Flamingo Signal Station, the Panama Canal control station, and the ship entered the Gulf of Panama.  From here, it was just over 90 miles to the sea buoy and the Canal Channel that would lead us to the dock in the port of Balboa Panama.  The ship traffic is extremely heavy approaching and leaving the Canal, which made the work for the bridge watch very busy.  Often times they had more than 30 ships on the radar at one time. 

About 0400 the chief engineer and his fueling crew began their work to prepare the ship to receive about 800,000 gallons of fuel.  The chief mate had already discharged over 2500 tons of ballast water so the ship would not sink too deep into the water.  Fuel tanks were sounded, (gauged) and sounded again to be sure how much fuel each tank could hold.  When fuel is delivered at about 100,000 gallons per hour, there is little time to recheck after the fueling is started. 

At 0800 we were 2 miles from the sea buoy and Flamingo Signal Station directed us to go to anchor in the merchant anchorage with about 100 other ships and await a boarding and inspecting officer.  We were informed that our pilot would be heading toward us in about one hour.  We were anchored by 0900 and the inspector arrived and cleared the ship for the dock.  By 1015, the pilot had arrived and we were heaving the anchor.  At 1030, we entered the Panama Canal enroute to our dock for fuel.

After turning the ship around in the channel, we berthed port side along side to berth 7 A and B.  The tide was low and the ship had very little clearance under the keel.  The fueling team from ashore and the ships agent all boarded the vessel and made the final clearance into Panama and the final inspections for fueling.  By 0130 the dock crew was connecting the fueling hose and the independent surveyor was re-gauging the tanks.  At 0234, the fuel transfer started and the ship began to sink in the water.  The engineering fueling team carefully watched where the fuel went and opened and closed valves to keep the ship on an even keel and to keep tanks from overflowing. 

By 0030, on Tuesday, we were taking the last of  the fuel and topping off the final tanks and at 0054m fueling ended.  By 0130, the hose was disconnected and the independent surveyor measured how much we had received.  His numbers agreed with the chief engineers, but the dock numbers showed 20 tons more than we had received.  These numbers will have to be agreed to as the difference is about $12000. 

At 0215, the pilot boarded the ship and at 0222, the last line was let go and the ship was underway from Panama, full of fuel.  By 0300 the pilot was off and the ship was headed toward Lima Peru.

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