Panama

The highlight of the trip was finally here, the Panama Canal.  First we had a day's stop at Panama City which, as it turns out, is very unsual. Normally the cruise ships don't stop here but we were lucky enough to stop overnight.

Another eary morning, at this rate we may as well be going to work, no sleep ins here.  Our day's excursion was a monkey watch tour.  This time there wasn't any mayhem & I didn't cause a riot so it was a pretty quiet day! We finally got off the boat at 9am, was bundled onto the buses, this time Jon took a short cut so the 4 of us trotted after him and was one of the first to jump on the bus, giving us front row seats.  We drove for almost an hour to get to the boat, passing through parts of Panama City then driving beside the canal most of the way & past a cemetery with a couple hundred white crosses. This was the French cemetery where one cross represented 100 people who died building the canal.

Once we reached the Gatun lake area the bus turned off and we went down a short road before coming to where all the boats were parked that would take us around the canals.  These were open boats with a roof.  We were lucky with ours as we only had 10 aboard (we made up half the pasengers) the camera man from the ship was another then just two other couples.  the seats was a bench seat around the side of the boat so everyone got a 'window' seat. The driver was at the back & my position was right out the front so I had an unimpeded 180 deg view.  The ships photographer was opposite me so he set up the video camera & had his fancy cameras taking the same shots as me.  Ours was the only one like it, the others had twice the number & sat across the boat.

The boat whizzed out to the lake, took us along it for some time & we saw some of the big ships passing by, one was a huge cruise ship which looked quite impressive.  Gatun lake is near the Atlantic end of the canal and is or was the largest man made lake.  It is enourmous and was made by daming up a river? (don't quote me on exactly what they damed) then flooded the rainforest.  All the little islands in the lake is the tops of the hills, still with remanents of the rainforest on them.  In these trees were the monkeys we had come to see as well as birds, iguanas, butterflies & more which we didn't see and swimming around were crocodiles & turtles which we did see.  

There are several types of monkeys there but the ones we saw hanging around were the Howler monkeys  which are the ones that make the loudest noise of them all.  They did oblige us and let out a few howls. It was a nice little cruise around and we did see wildlife but once again I was a bit disappointed in the lack of life.  I thought it would be teaming with birds and lots of monkeys swinging in the trees and be more exotic than it was.

Back on the bus we were given a brown paper bag with lunch!  It was a ham filled bun, a muffin & a lollie.  A bit basic but much better than going to a big buffet & waste time eating food we don't really need at ths point.

The bus dropped us back to the boat but we weren't ready to go back on so we hailed a taxi that we saw when it let off 5 guys. Thinking this must be a big taxi to fit 5 guys it will surely fit the 5 of us.  He agreed to take us to the French Quarter for $20 so we all piled in.  Mum was the lucky one & got to sit up the front and the 4 of us were left to squeeze in the back.  I don't know how they managed to fit the other 5 in but it wasn't an easy fit for us.  We had to line up almost on our sides & looked remarkably like a tin of sardines.  Just as we got to the French Quarter which was just after going through the dodgiest part of town the heavens decided to open up and a massive thunderstorm hit.  It was a tropical torrential storm.  As there was no shelter we didn't fancy getting out so asked him to take us to the shopping mall instead.  He gave us a quick tour of the area as we really did want to have a look around and it did look lovely the parts that had been restored but there were plenty other building that weren't and they were very run down looking.  Not an area that you would walk around & stray off too far as it boarded the rough and especially in the middle of a thunderstorm.  So off we went to the mall to shelter from the rain.

This mall as massive, it had lots of different entrances & just seemed to go on & on.  Apart from how big it was it turned out to be otherwise unremarkable.  It had the same type of shops we would get at home and simaler prices.  There were a couple of food courts, couple of big department stores, a Samsung shop, electronic shops, opticians, boutiques etc etc etc.  I didn't really feel inspired to buy anything except a cup of coffee and get some free internet.

Taxi driver came back & picked us up as promised & back to the ship.  The driving is crazy in Panama, lots of cars and they just go for it.  Not sure if there are any road rules except hang on tight & hope for the best.  A couple of times I thought we would get an additional vehicle joining us in the back seat as I saw a pair of headlights just stop short of the door handle.  Horns are a good thing and they use them with gay abandon in this place. I saw a couple of taxis with their boots pushed in which worried me a bit but we did get back safety, the only casualty was Shirene's glasses that got squashed in the crush.

At this point mum went back on board the boat (it was a tender port but the last tender went back at midnight so plenty of time) while we decided to walk down & get some dinner.  

Where the ships dock is called Fuerte Amador made up of the 4 small islands, Flamenco, Perico, Culebra & Naos.  These are all joined together by a mile long causeway made with the earth taken while digging the canal. They have made the causeway really nice, lining it with palm trees, a nice wide footpath and grass verges with seats going all the way down.  In the weekend people come here to rollerskate, bike, walk or run along it.  You can hire bikes here or a contraption which is a bike but more like a cart with a roof, can seat 4 people with a couple of kids hanging in the front basket and everyone gets to peddle. A bit like the paddle boats but its a cart.

The temperture was lovely & balmy as the sun was just setting so a stroll along the promanade with the evening walkers then selecting a nice little resturante to have dinner was very pleasant. All these ports take the American dollar & in fact Panama uses the USD but calls it the Balboa.  Same peice of paper, just a different name. It's very handy not having to buy local currency.

Finally the big day arrives. We up anchor around 5.30am and was meant to pick up the pilot at 6.30am but because the area had had a big storm several days before there had been flooding in the canal from the rivers that feed it (the canal is made up purely of fresh water) so they had to release some of the excess water, there was all sorts of flotsam & rubbish floating around so it held up ships on both ends making a traffic jam by the time we came to go through.  The pilot was 15 mins late & we also had a medical emergency so someone had to be off loaded at the first lock.  This was the 2nd medical emergency we had, the first one we had already left port in Costa Rica and were way out to sea when someone took really ill so the Captain had to turn the ship around & head north to the nearest port to throw them off.  This was a big diversion, would hate to know how much that cost & who had to pay for it!

Anyway, back to the canal.  We were half an hour late on all the timings we were given on our daily printout out newspaper but time was made up later.  We passed under the Bridge of The Americas at 7.45 which is an unremarkable bridge, bit like the Auckland harbour one & I forget the significance of it.

By 8.30am we reached the first set of locks called the Miraflores locks.  To get from one side to the other the ship has to be lifted 85ft or 26 metres above sea level to cross the Continental Divid then lowered back down again.  To do this there are 3 locks at each end.  The Miraflores locks consist of two locks or chambers so we sailed to the first one, which was were they had to unload the sick person so that took some time then watched the water drain from the first chamber before the gates were swung open.  We were hooked up to 8 'mules', 2 at the front and two at the back on each side.  These mules were locomotives on tracks on either side of the lock and had wire ropes from the ship & going thru what looked like a key.  These keys wound the ropes tight or loosened them off, depending on necessity. The tracks ran up a steep hill to the top of the lock then down again on the other side, making it look like a rollercoaster.

As mentioned, these locks use only fresh water and to move our ship from one side of the canal to the other would take 52 million litres.  They dread any sort of drought because if it stops raining they will run out of water to work the locks.  They are now building more locks beside the existing ones which are bigger & will allow the really huge ships to make the transit as now they have to still sail right around.  The new locks, which are under construction, will also recycle the water making them much more water efficient.

Our cabin is right at the front of the ship although our balcony is to the side.  In front of our port window is another deck which only the crew can get to from the door beside our front door, at the end of the corridor.  Jon had sussed out the side partitions and discovered that all you need was a screw driver or a bent fork to unlock the flap, giving us access to the front deck.  We thought we were very smart and was looking forward to having our own private deck that we could stand on and have a full on front end view of the whole transit.  Well, the bastard of a capatain announced the day before that he was opening up the front decks on levels 4, 5 & 6 to all guests.  We were gutted.  Not only had we lost our private viewing balcony but we had to keep our curtain closed all day as people were standing right outside our cabin & could see in.   By the end of the transit the heavens had opened up again and was torrential rain, which was a shame in some respects but good in others as it got those annoying public nusiances off our deck (mind you, some sheltered from the rain by huddling under the overhang right outside our windows! Some people have no respect) and we could open the curtain again.

So we were towed into the first lock and I can see why they are making bigger locks.  Looking down the side of the ship, there was only 1 foot to spare between the side of the ship & the side of the lock.  The captain had said there was just a 2 foot clearance but I thought he meant on either side, not altogether.  The water rushed in and you could feel this entire boat rising upso fast.  I have been through locks before but that was on a canal boat.  Being on a big cruise ship as high as a 10 story building is an entirely different matter. Then we had to wait for the next lock to drain down to our level as there was a ship going through in front of us.  There are two lanes of locks parallel so two ships could go through at the same time.  As it was so busy there were two big container ships ahead of us so we could watch both of them being lifted higher than us, it was amazing to see. It took 15 minutes to drain or refill a lock so by the time we had made it through the 2nd lock it was 9.45am, an hour & quarter to clear both locks.

The next lock is the Pedro Miguel Lock and only half an hour away.  It only took 20 mintues to pass through that one then we were away.  From the Pedro Miguel we passed through the Culebra Cut which is the narrowest section of the canal. It first started out to be only 300 ft wide but over the years it has been gradually widened & is currently 700ft wide.    It is 12.7 kms long & represents almost a fifth of the waterway. It was here that the French were cutting through & where most of them died, around 22,000 of them.  The guy who built the Suez Canal was the same one who started building this one.  His problem was he thought he could build it at sea level.  Having not been to Panama & only visiting twice during the construction he had no appreciation of what an impossible task this was.   With so much rain fall they also had to contend with landslides so what would take months to dig would be filled again with one landslide.  Needless to say he failed and his company went bankrupt I think in the late 1880's.  The Americans came along at the begining of the 20th centuary & negotiated with the newly  independent   Panama to build the canal. It was decided that locks were the key & it was finaly completed by August 1914 after another 4,000 or so men dying in the making.  From end to end it's 80 kms & depending on traffic should take around 7-10 hours.  Ships go from the Pacific to the Atlantic in the morning and from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the afternoon. It is open 24 hrs a day since they put lights up & one last fact, if all the material which was 200 million cubic metres was put on railroad flatcars it would circle the globe four times.

So after the Culebra Cut it opens up to Gatun Lake which was where we were the day before. It is from this lake that feeds the locks which is drawn down by gravity & poured into the locks through a main clvert system.  It took us from 10.35 to 1.30pm to cross this lake and reach the Gatun Locks.  At these locks are all three at once where as at the other end were two at once then the third one further along.

It took a long time to go through these locks as they were having problems with the level of them.  Not sure exactly what, if it was they couldn't drain them or because of the flooding or what but we waited for an hour before we went through the first lock & almost as long for the 2nd lock.  We got to the third one by 3.10pm and were through by 3.30pm, the quickest one yet.  I want to see the last one from the top deck so we stopped for a coffee first but by the time he had made it (he was a bit slow) we were through.  I was a bit annoyed as it took so long to get through all the other locks & the one I wanted to see we flew through.  

That was our day through the Panama Canal, just as we were finishing, it poured with rain then as we sailed past the port of Cristobel & into the Atlantic Ocean the sun was begining to set. Onwards to Cartagena.