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Published: January 24th 2012
AHOY!
Kevin in the CanalWe had an overnight stay in Cartagena, Columbia.This is a lovely old colonial city and was initially used by the Spanish as a way of transporting their gold to Spain and thereby avoiding the Pacific Ocean pirates. But soon the pirates got wind of the tremendous amount of gold and silver being sent out of this natural port and the likes of Sir Francis Drake and others soon became “pirates of the Caribbean.” Johnny Depp owes a lot to history.
Regent arranged for a shuttle into town but unfortunately the buses were blockaded at the gate by the local taxi union. So many passengers chose not to go into town and thus missed seeing the beautiful historic center of Cartagena.
That evening Regent hosted a dinner under the Caribbean sky on the pool deck and brought aboard a local group of dancers for a post dinner show. It was probably one of the best and by far the most energetic folkloric show we have ever seen.
Long time cruiser Ed Knight was celebrating his 95th birthday and so we joined in the festivities. Most of the staff has cruised with Ed. His trademark is giving out little flashlights.
BOCA CHICA ENTRY TO CARTAGENA
Romancing the Stone was filmed here To this point he figures he has distributed about 13,000 beacons to fellow passengers.
The highlight of this segment for most cruisers is the transit of the Panama Canal. We have passed through many times and still find it fascinating. David McCullough’s excellent book, “The Path Between the Seas” has been our textbook since we first experienced the canal in 1997.Now there is a great deal of focus on the Canal since it is going through a massive construction phase. A new set of locks is being built on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides in order to accommodate the new, larger ships that at present must go around Cape Horn or offload their cargo onto trucks and trains for transport. The longshoremen on the U.S. west coast ports are quite worried since once the new locks are completed, these huge ships from Asia will be able to bypass Seattle, Oakland and Long Beach and take their containers directly to East Coast ports.
We entered the Gatun Locks at 6:15am beginning our full day crossing this engineering marvel. I went down to the lower deck at the stern of the ship to get a good view of the
BRIAN O'BRIEN & ELDA PAULUZZI
Cruise Consultant & Assistant Cruise Director action. Just before we entered the first lock I saw a large caiman (alligator) along the shore. As the locomotives were attaching their cables to our ship one of the lines snapped…which was quite a surprise and there was much scurrying around and hollering by the workers. We had alerted our family and friends that they could watch our progress on various Canal webcams. My brother Tom and fellow cruiser Ken Lyon both took pictures of the Mariner in the locks even though the weather was a bit hazy that day. My sister Teresa, who is a teacher in Des Moines, sent us a picture of her whole class watching us in the Miraflores Lock.
A former employee of Regent is now working for the Panama Canal Commission and he gave a wonderful narration as we went through the Canal. A group of San Blas Indians also boarded at the Gatun Locks and brought some of their handicrafts with them. As we passed out of the last lock we were cheered on by several hundred bystanders. Another successful passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and for the very first time we turned left instead of right. After
POOL DECK PARTY
The chefs take a bow. all, we are going to South America this time instead of up to North America. How cool is that?
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Della and Jim Daughton
non-member comment
Thank you
Thanks for the update, we always love to hear from you, have a wonderful trip......