Transiting the Canal de Panama

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Geo: 9.18149, -79.8218

Up early with the alarm as we were scheduled to enter the Gatun Locks at 6:55 a.m. I think we may have started even earlier as we were out of them about thirty minutes before expected. We watched the operation of the Gatun Locks from our balcony.

A couple of days ago, I scheduled a time for one of the ship's photographers to come to our cabin to take our photo on our balcony with the locks in the background. He made it just in time as we exited the last of the Gatun Locks. There were also ship photographers who disembarked to take photos at the same time the lock personnel embarked to guide the ship through the canal. Those photographers were on the side taking photos of people on their balconies and on the public decks. We posed for them, too.

The time when lock personnel take over the operation of the ship through the canal is the only time a captain will relinquish control of his ship to anyone else. Exiting the first set of locks, the ship dropped anchor to wait for an hour to proceed. There was a lot of traffic coming from the opposite direction that we had to wait for.

Much of the day today we spent in our room or on our balcony watching the canal scenery go by. The ship had a canal expert, Edgar Paul, come on the ship at the Gatun Locks and get off near the Miraflores Locks. He took a launch that came up to the tender embarkation point to get on and off the ship. He had a running commentary about what we were seeing as we went by. His data was a bit different than what we had heard from other sources. I'm not too sure about his accuracy. He used words like “about” and “I think” too often, but when he said something was “very, very legal”, he lost the rest of my confidence. The payments for transiting the canal can be legal, or they can be illegal, but not “very, very legal”. Even with gray areas of the law, that concept doesn't exist. We have heard numbers between 300,000 and 850,000 as the amount in U.S. dollars that has been the highest fee paid for a ship's transit. Whom to believe? Everyone has said that the cheapest transit was 36 cents paid by travel author and adventurer Richard Halliburton when he swam through in 1928.

The locks are separated into three sections. The first, coming from the Atlantic side, are the Gatun Locks, a series of three locks together raising ships approximately 85 feet. Near the Pacific side are the locks which lower ships back to sea level, the Pedro Miguel Lock, a single lock, then the Miraflores Locks, a series of two. It was almost four o'clock by the time we exited the canal and saw the magnificent skyline of Panama City.

Yesterday, we received a message from the Excursions Office that our chosen shore excursion for San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua had been canceled since they did not have enough reservations to go ahead with it. Philip and I selected another tour that is only three hours long -- shorter than our original planned one. We stopped by the Excursions Desk to reserve it, and it was available. We much prefer half-day trips to the longer ones.

We are now booked on the trip to the town of Rivas for a city walk followed by a drive by Lake Nicaragua and two volcanoes and a stop at the Amayo Hacienda for a rest and snack. The brochure did not mention the Amayo Hacienda, but rather said a restaurant for the break. We'll see where we end up. Perhaps the Excursions Desk clerk had more up-to-date information than the printed brochure. The Amayo Hacienda was to be the focal point of our original tour. The new tour is offered twice during the day. We chose the afternoon tour trading off having to experience a hotter time of day for not having to get up early. All the other ship tours in Nicaragua are full-day excursions, eight to ten hours, going to Managua or Granada which are a long way from the Pacific coast.

We had another message yesterday, too; this one from Guest Services. They are changing out the hallway carpet and would be in the corridor in front of our room today. In the middle of the afternoon, we heard noises outside indicating they had started the work. It moved quickly and didn't create a problem for us coming and going. The new carpet is quite different from the old with a modern, abstract pattern. I don't like it as much as the old pattern. This ship is going into dry dock for an upgrade in June so I suppose they are getting a jump on that work.

While we were near the locks, we had Internet service using Philip's hot spot so he could get his students' final projects downloaded. He'll be able to finish grading them tomorrow and upload the grades when we get to Nicaragua on Thursday.

At dinner tonight, only Estelle and Sam were there at our table with us. Leonard and Alison went to the specialty restaurant, but I don't know what's happened to Lori and Suzann. We haven't seen them in days. After dinner I did laundry again. It wasn't busy in the laundry room. Yay!

Word for the day: Neopanamax. The size of the ships that are too big for the original Panama locks, but will fit in the new locks which opened last year. The canal expert pointed out a neopanamax-sized ship that he said held 13,000 twenty-foot containers. I am doubtful since what I could calculate to be visible on top was fewer than 4,000. I don't think they loaded more than double that amount below deck. If I had easy internet access, I'd be doing some research on that right now. The internet service on the ship is too slow, so I'll check when I get home.

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