The Panama Canal

Day 11  Monday, February 12, 2018  Transiting the Panama Canal

Cruising the canal in our bicycling t-shirts! This was an incredible day, crossing the entire canal and learning so much about the whole project and engineering achievement.

We and most people on the ship awoke early to go out and watch us approach the Panama Canal. We and thousands others wanted a good vantage point for experiencing the crossing. Even when we got out to the bow as early as 6:10, it was already jammed with people who had brought chairs from the pool area to stake out their claims. As you can see, we have our coffees in thermoses, towels to stay warm, and an okay spot to see ahead.

Our ship had to wait our turn to enter the canal, out in the bay for quite a while, as the morning got lighter. That's Panama City in the background.The loudspeaker announcer pointed out the building that was a Trump tower, which has since been in the news due to the owners throwing out the Trump people.

Here comes a ship departing the canal and headed south. About 15,000 vessels pass through the canal each year, compared to about 1000 annually when it first opened in 1914.

 A local guide came on the ship's loudspeakers to talk to us all day long, and one of the first things he said was how there is an illusion that the sun was rising in the west, instead of the east. Why? Because the canal actually runs in a northwest direction, not from west to east as we imagine without looking at a map. Since our ship was facing northwest prior to entering, the sun rising in the east was behind us, not in front of us. Our natural sense was that it would rise directly in front of us if the canal headed eastward, but since it was behind us, it "must be" rising from the west!

 

As it was getting lighter, our ship finally proceeded toward the canal. We passed this colorful roof top of the Port O' Call.

Bridge of the Americas (The PanAmerican Highway) was considered the beginning of the 51-mile-long canal. It would take us all day to traverse the canal.

Just a short ways in, we reached the first of three sets of locks - two to rise up on the Pacific side and one to drop down at the Atlantic end. The picture above shows a super-huge ship entering the new, modern locks that opened less than two years ago (June, 2016). The new locks are just to the west of the original locks, and can handle much longer and wider ships.

This photo shows the water re-utilization pools that the new locks use to save 60% of the water needed in the operation.

After passing by the new locks, we are approaching the original locks that our ship used. They are called the Miraflores Locks. There are two consecutive chambers, each raising the ship 27 feet. Notice that there are adjacent locks next to each other, to be able to handle multiple ship traffic. This is precisely how they originally built it, over 100 years ago. The canal opened in 1914.

At the front side of the lock wall are the waiting locomotive engines that will tie to the ship and help pull us forward. They tie to ships on both sides and pull tightly so that the ship will remain centered and not scrape against the lock walls. Our ship was so wide that there was only about a foot of clearance on either side. Of course, for 100 years, the width of ships designed to pass through the canal were limited by the Panama Canal lock widths - until now, when the new locks allow for wider ships. The term for maximum-width ships like ours to be able to the use the original canal locks is "Panamax".

We were excited as we were inching forward in the first lock. We would be rising 27 feet in this front lock, then another 27 feet in the second lock chamber you see ahead of us, and then we'd go out into the artificial lake that led to the next pair of single locks a couple miles ahead. This photo also shows the rails that the locomotives run on that pull and guide the ships through the lock. Each lock uses 26,700,000 gallons of water each time it fills!

We were exchanging waves with tourists at the observation building next to the Miraflores Locks. Notice how they are slightly above us -- but when we rose our 27 feet, we looked down on them!

And there you go! The lock doors closed behind us, water filled our lock by gravity from the lake in front, and we have risen to be higher than the tourists off to our side.

This picture shows a huge ship traversing the new canal next to us. Whereas we have two sets of locks (three chambers total) to rise the required 85 feet, the new locks have one set of three chambers. Thus, that ship in the picture is 31 feet above us, because it's already lifted its full 85 feet, whereas we still have our 3rd chamber in the lock ahead of us a couple of miles. The new wider locks have their own canal to pass by the entire Miraflores Lake between our two sets of locks. That new canal is wide enough only for one ship at a time. Just past our second set of locks, those huge ships enter the main canal along with us to travel the rest of the way to the north end of the Panama Canal.

The gates are opening in the lock next to us to allow in a whole bunch of tugs and tourist ships.

The picture above shows a few things: 1) the lock next to us with two tugs near its front gate; 2) the side of our own gate before it opened to allow us to move out into Miraflores Lake; 3) one of the locomotives next to our lock, as it was about to dis-attach its cable from us. If you look carefully, you can see the cable crossing from it to us, across the water in our lock, in the lower right of the picture.

 This picture more clearly shows the two cable lines from the locomotive crossing to the bow of our ship. See how small the man is down there? 

Now the final gates are opening for us to proceed into Miraflores Lake and reach the 2nd set of locks a couple miles ahead. As you can see here and in the photo above this one, there are actually two gates at the front (and back) of the upper locks. This is for safety reasons: A failure of the lock gates - for example, caused by a runaway ship hitting a gate - could unleash a flood on the lands downstream of the locks.  By the way, all the gates in these locks are the originals, and they weigh up to 662 tons! The gate hinges weigh almost 17 tons!

We are still departing the lock toward Miraflores Lake as I got this picture looking back. On the left side of the photo, you see our ship passengers looking over the side, and our ship is so wide that you cannot even see the water in the lock.

Once we proceeded slowly across Miraflores Lake to the 2nd locks less than two miles ahead, Janet and I left our perch at the bow to get some breakfast. When they brought onboard our ship's Panama expert/announcer before dawn while we were out in Panama Bay, they also brought onboard this woman for touristy photos plus about 20 vendors to sell stuff.

Later, for lunch out on the pool deck, they made this fabulous paella! As I recall, that was about all I ate. My plate was full of only paella. When we returned to a spot at the bow, they had set up a bar to serve everyone there, so Janet and I had some tall cold ones out there in the sun and heat of the day!

Now we are entering the 2nd set of locks, the Pedro Miguel Locks. This single-lift lock raised us 31 feet, for the total of 85 feet above sea level.

 For a brief time, Janet and I went back to our room. Outside is one of the locomotives pulling us along.

Now we have risen the 31 feet, the gates are just about fully open, and we will travel for the next 45 miles or so through the Culebra Cut ahead of us and then across the man-made Gatun Lake to the locks at the Atlantic end of the canal.

Our ship is now departing, and you see not only a tug coming toward us to "help" us through the narrow Culebra Cut in the distance, but two pleasure sailboats leaving the lock next to us. Yes sir, even little pleasure boats can cross through the mighty Panama Canal (for an $800 fee, of course). As I recall, our ship's toll was in the neighborhood of $100,000. The record toll was another Norwegian ship (the Pearl) in 2010 - $375,600!

Now we have moved forward, passed under the Centennial Bridge, and are in the Culebra Cut. One of those pleasure boats in the previous photo is waiting for us to pass them. This narrow cut is almost 8 miles long, and required the most labor to dig and remove earth. Nearly 200 million cubic yards of earth had be removed from this area, which is where the Continental Divide passes. Originally this cut was 300 ft wide, then it later was widened to 500 ft, but they want to widen it further.

I thought this tiny sign of "Welcome to the Panama Canal" was funny, now that it was past noon and we'd already passed through three locks.

We are about to pass the Continental Divide. This part of the canal is too narrow for large ships to pass each other going opposite directions, so ships take turns going either north or south. Ahead of us is another northbound ship.We learned that the original French builders who started work here in the late 19th century planned to build the entire canal at sea level (the main French architect was the one who had successfully built the Suez Canal like that). However, digging out that amount of earth was impossible here, and about 20,000 died of disease before they abandoned their attempt.

Looking behind us, back toward Centennial Bridge. That tug followed us through the cut, ready to help if needed such as if there were strong winds.

Back in our room briefly, we were shocked to see that cement debris was in the ledge of our port window. We guessed that our ship must have scraped something on a lock wall. ??

We are on Gatun Lake by now, having passed through the Culebra Cut. That ship will soon enter the cut going south. 

Gatun Lake is huge and wide. When it was first created, it was the largest man-made lake in the world. Ships travel 21 miles across it.

There is the top of Gatun Dam as we were almost to the Gatun Locks at the northern end.

These are the Gatun Locks, a flight of three chambers to lower ships back down the 85 feet to the Atlantic Ocean. Again, two sets are side-by-side. We were amazed to see the bridge in the distance under construction with just the center span left to be built.

From the stern of our ship, the two gates are closing behind us, with Gatun Lake behind.

We have dropped 28 feet in the first chamber, and the ship is moving into the second chamber.

We are in the second chamber, waiting for the gates behind us to close.

There is the same Evergreen super tanker we saw way back in the morning as we were in the Miraflores Locks, and it is descending in the new wider locks a bit to the east (our starboard side).

Here we are departing the final of the three chambers, and we are now in the Atlantic Ocean.

This is a close-up of a family that had come to watch us pass by. We watched them drive up and pile out of the van to watch us.

Amazing to see how a suspension bridge roadway is completed piece by piece from both sides until they meet in the middle.

We proceeded out into the protected Limon Bay natural harbor as the sun was setting, passing many waiting ships, and continued overnight to Cartagena, Colombia. The seas were MUCH heavier in the Atlantic than they had been in the pacific Pacific, so it was a rough night. What a wonderful day traversing the canal and learning so much fascinating information from the local guide over the speaker system.