The Cruise of a Lifetime - Panama Canal I

“Is it beautiful?”  92-year-old Sylvia asks breathlessly.  She leaves for the Panama Canal next Tuesday.

This was my first view.  I thought it was buildings to the left, painted funny.  A cargo ship in the next lock!

“Beautiful?  No.  It’s ugly.  It’s a canal.  It’s a marvel – the first vertical cement ever poured; it’s insanely expedient and compelling but it is not beautiful.”

Road parting so ship can pass through.

Bus waiting that didn't get through before the road parted.

  Actually, family and friends could have watched us pass through the Canal on computers at home if we had known the link ahead of time.  I’ll bet that would have been action-filled viewing, watching the water slowly rising or falling.

The bow from Deck 11

 There are currently two sets of locks operating continuously, employing a workforce of over 9,500 men and women.  14,000 vessels pass through each year.  In 2014, when the Canal celebrates 100 years of operation, an expansion to three sets of locks will be in operation, doubling the canal’s capacity and allowing the transit of longer, wider ships.

DeRay says this is an oil tanker.  We were in hopes to see a liquid natural gas tanker.

 Passing through the Panama Canal was the Christmas Day of our cruise.

The night before, Panama Eve, we were as eager and excited as children on Christmas Eve.  Tomorrow is the BIG DAY.

Wednesday October 27, 2012.  Caribbean Sea.

Panama Canal Transit 5:27 am 1^st Pilot boards the Vessel;

6:30 am Entering Gatun locks;

we passed by Gamboa around noon;

1:30 pm Entering Pedro Miguel locks;

2:40 pm Entering Mira Flores locks;

3:40 pm All clear of locks.

4:30 pm Pilots disembark,

Welcome to the Pacific Ocean!

Like children on Christmas morn, we awaken early, going straight to Deck 6 where they opened the bow for our viewing pleasure.  WOW! 

Catch Ed in the "Bike Missouri" shirt.

 The Christmas of our Cruise.  Long anticipated.  Thrilling.  We were not disappointed.  We were in rapture all day long, hardly taking time to eat. 

Heat Advisory:

When you are outside,

make sure to wear a wide-brimmed hat,

use plenty of sunscreen and drink plenty of water.

By some fluke of good luck, it was cloudy and rained off and on for most of the day.

They brought an official narrator on board to explain what was going on and what we were seeing.  The Panama Canal not only shortens the distance between many Atlantic to Pacific ports by 8000 miles, it cuts the total mileage from Great Britain to New Zealand by 1500 miles.

Since 1999, the transit through the locks has been controlled by Panama Canal shoreside officials.  The locks form a kind of “staircase” for taking ships through the canal. This interoceanic waterway uses a system of locks with two lanes that operates as water elevators and raises the ships from sea level to the level of Gatun Lake, 26 meters above sea level, to allow the crossing through the Continental Divide, and then lowers the ships to sea level on the other side of the Isthmus. 

  The United States proposed the lock canal when they took over the project from France in 1904.  To do this, they needed water available at the higher levels to fill parts of the canal.  This was accomplished by damming the Chagres River.  The water used to raise and lower the vessels in each set of locks is obtained from Gatun Lake by gravity and poured into the locks through a main culvert system that extends under the locks chambers from the sidewalls and the center wall. 

Here's your beauty, Sylvia.  The only flowers I saw in all day.

The Panama Flag.

Within the locks, ships are kept centered by electric locomotives called “mules” moving along the banks.  They are called mules because, especially during the Gold Rush, one method of transportation was to take a ship to the Isthmus of Panama, then travel by mule train across to the Pacific Ocean and catch another ship to California.  They eventually built a railroad which cut the time drastically.  

Because we had time in our queue before the second set of locks, we circled around Panama City to get a better view of the new locks and saw the Mormon Temple from both sides.  The narrator said that we could catch a glimpse of the Mormon Temple through the trees.  

The captain bragged later that the pilot was very nice and let him drive his own boat through the canal.  To reserve a spot in the queue cost our cruise ship $35,000, plus $145 for each occupied cabin and $110 for each vacant cabin.  The cargo ships pay so much per container; oil tankers pay per gallon since you can’t weigh a ship.  Only 4% of the traffic through the canal is cruise ships so it is mainly used for transporting cargo.  When a swimmer swam through, they charged him 38 cents. 

Ed relaxing.  Jerry & Lana below.

It's been a long day on our feet, huh.

Ice Cream in Lido to celebrate our passage through the Panama Canal. 

5:10 PM we are cruising again. 

What a Wonderful Christmas Day!

DeRay read David McCullough’ book on the Panama Canal:  The Path Between the Seas:  The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. 
Ed and I have yet to finish it.  Fascinating. 
Two weeks later, Ed was engrossed in his kindle.  I thought he was reading The Secret Garden.  "This is sure interesting, Mom.  You know something, Mom.  I love God's children.  Especially the Americans."  Curious, I checked to see what he was reading.  It was David McCullough's book on the Panama Canal and he was to the part where America took over the failed venture.