Day 7
December 5th: The Panama Canal
Bob: We had read in the "Princess Patter" that we would arrive at the first locks of the Panama Canal between 6 and 7 in the morning. Thus, we were primed to leap out of bed shortly after 6 and run up on deck to watch our ship enter the first set of locks just after dawn. Despite the early hour, the railings on the front decks were crowded with hundreds of folks trying to watch the very slow unfolding of events. It was jam-packed, so we had to try to fit ourselves into little gaps in the crowd to watch and take some pictures. The first step in the process was to attach cables from the little electric trains called "mules" to our ship. The mules have an interesting system of pulleys that allows them to pull in or let out cable, and by adjusting the tension between the pairs of mules at the bow or the stern of the ship, the hull of the ship can be kept directly in the middle of the canal or lock. That is particularly important when the ship is a "Panamax" ship, which means that the hull is built to exactly fit into the length and width of the canal locks with only a foot or two on each side and in front and back. The Coral Princess was one such Panamax ship and had mules positioned in pairs on either side of the bow and either side of the sterm. The mules have to really be careful to adjust the cable tensions so as to avoid the ship scraping its hull on the concrete sides of the canal. That is not easy to do as the ship gradually rises up in the lock, giving slack on both sides, and in fact we thought we saw a Panamax-sized container ship right ahead of us brush the canal sides once or twice as it rose in the lock. Raising our ship up in each lock was a fairly simple, albeit slow, process. Once the lock doors were closed behind us to form a watertight chamber, then underground valves were opened and the water from Lake Gatun simply flowed downhill through an underground tunnel into the lock chamber, gradually lifting the ship. It was a slow, smooth, noiseless operation until the lock was filled to about 95%, at which point the natural gravity-powered flow is too slow and some auxiliary electric pumps are used to help push in the final 5% of the water. |
Monika: Today was the highpoint of the cruise. We got up quickly around 6 AM and arrived at the sundeck just when we were about ready to enter the first lock. The Panama Canal has 3 locks. On the Pacific side, the first lock has two chambers and the second lock only one. Once these three chambers have taken the ship to the height of 85 feet, we cruised through the cut that was made through the continental divide into Lake Gatun. On the Atlantic side of Lake Gatun is only one lock, but is has three chambers to bring the ship down to sea level again. When we got up to the sundeck we found out that we were not the first ones up. At the bow of the ship, people were standing four deep watching the ship slowly inch into the first lock I had no chance to see anything in front, so I decided to take my pictures from the side. Bob with his superior height, managed to hold his camera above the crowd and get some nice pictures. I knew that the ship was "Panamax" size, meaning it had about 2 feet on either side and 5 feet front and aft and that only, because the bow was undercut to allow the gates to close beneath where we were standing on deck 15. The ship was held in the middle by four locomotives, mules, that ran on rails located on either side of the lock. The locks have two lanes and a big bright red arrow in the middle island directs the ship to the right or left lane. This early in the morning, both lanes were used for Atlantic-bound ships. We entered the lock just as the sun was rising to the east of us. It really was an eerie moment. All along the canal, we had a naturalist probably on the bridge, explaining where we were and what was happening. He told us about the mules and how they operated, and encouraged us to wave to our intrepid ship's photographers who were walking along the island between the two lanes taking pictures of people standing on deck or sitting on their balconies. |
Bob: Once past the set of locks on the Pacific side of the canal, we sailed through the "cut", where a gap had been blown through the continental divide, before we entered an arm of Gatun Lake, a man-made lake constructed to span most of the width of the Panamanian Isthmus. |
Monika: After having been lifted first to the next chamber and then to the next level, we steamed into a little lake, were the ships were lining up for the next lock. At the end of this lock came the narrowest part of the canal, the cut through the Continental Divide. Looking up at the rocks that had to be blasted away to make room for the canal, you could only imagine the work that was involved. We did see dynamite tubes sticking out on the side, where they are trying to widen the cut. At this point, traffic in the cut can go in only one direction, which works ok early in the morning but causes traffic jams at other times. |
Bob: By that time we were famished as we had bolted right out onto the deck without any pause for breakfast, so we went down to the Horizon Court buffet breakfast for a belated meal. After that I found a nice nook in the card room that had a great view of the shore of the lake passing us on the larboard side. We even had a windowsill to prop our feet up on, so there we sat for the next two to three hours, relaxing in air-conditioned comfort and watching the lakeshore glide by. I was reading and working crostics while Monika was crocheting, and we just looked up every now and then to check on the scenery. I saw quite a few small motorboats zooming past us, but I'm almost certain that they were "official use" boats because I saw absolutely no evidence of houses or any human construction at all for mile after mile. We also passed an occasional barge, dredge, or other working ship along the way, including a couple that had sunk at their moorings! Curiously, we didn't pass any yachts or medium-sized commercial ships, at least on our side, but we did see three large container ships and one cruise ship. |
Monika: Once in Lake Gatun, we decided to leave the deck and have breakfast. Afterwards we settled with a good book at a window in the card room, where it was cool. But whenever a large ship came by, I grabbed Bobs 10x camera, ran down one deck to the open promenade deck and took pictures. We passed another cruise ship, the Oceania from the P&O line and several cargo ships. We heard that a Russian warship was scheduled to pass through the canal, but did not see it. |
Bob: Hunger forced us to finally give up our seats for lunch, after which we returned to the upper deck to get front-row seats to watch our descent through the set of locks over on the Altantic side of the canal. With the tropical sun beating down, it was really hot and the UV levels were, I expect, quite high, so we slathered ourselves with sunblock and settled in right behind the glass panels at the front of the deck. Monika was right behind the window leaned up against a lamppost while I was sitting behind her in a chair with my head leaned against the handrail and my neck and back covered by a towel. Our ship had to wait for the Zuiderdam, a Holland America Line cruise ship, and a container ship to step down through the set of three locks ahead of us. We didn't want to give up our grandstand seats, so we ended up waiting a good hour or two in the hot, baking sun before we finally began our trip through. We did get to watch the sequence of operations on the ships before us, however, and that helped me get a really good grasp of the process. |
Monika: Finally, around 2PM we reached the final lock at the end of Lake Gatun. On the left hand side was the large dam that created the lake. In front of us, we even could see the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Up on Deck 15 Bob and I went forward, and there were far fewer people than in the morning. Bob even found a chair right at the railing, and I crawled under the railing and sat against a pillar. But we had to be patient. We were third in line. First there was the Zuiderdam, a Holland American ship that we had sailed on to Alaska. After that came the Jason, a container ship and then it was our turn. We watched somewhat fascinated as the Zuiderdam slowly crept into the first chamber. Then it took another eternity for her to slowly sink down and leave the chamber and the Jason to steam into the first chamber. Now things got more interesting. The lines that connected us to the mules were rowed out to the ship. We actually had line handlers from Paname on board besides the pilot. When the Jason finally left the first chamber and the gates closed behind her, we could see the water coming into the chamber to bring it up to our level before the outer gates opened to let us in. There were two gates at this lock, so that any accidental destruction of a gate would not cause a hazardous draining of the lake. Being as far forward as we were we could watch in awe as the ship crept forward not banging its side and inching far enough so that the gates in the back could be closed, while the front ones still could be opened. On the middle island are actually numbers that tell the captain and pilot how far to the frontgate. This is important especially for container ship, where the bridge is way in back. |
Bob: Lowering a ship in a lock is essentially the reverse process of raising it: Once the lock doors are closed the underground valves are opened and the water simply drains downhill out of the lock by the force of gravity. For the triple set of lock chambers on the Atlantic side, the water was drained from each uphill lock into the next lock chamber downhill, so the total amount of water lost as each ship completes locking through is minimized. Feeling our ship slowly and noiselessly sink as the water flowed out of the lock chamber underneath us was a quite unusual, almost weird sensation. On this downhill set of locks, we could look down into the lock ahead of us as they let the water flow in until its level matched the level of the water for our ship. Watching the water flowing into each lock chamber in turn sounds about as exciting as watching grass grow, but for us it really was fascinating. When the water levels were equalized at the uphill lock and the next one downhill, then the gates ponderously swung open and our ship was guided into the next lock chamber by the mules. After the gates closed behind us, the whole process was repeated. I held out until the third set of locks about an hour later, but something like heat exhaustion was affecting me, so leaving Monika up front I went to the back of the ship to photograph the locks behind us. Along the way I cooled off in our cabin for a few minutes, which helped a bit, and even when I went out in back I found a lounge chair under a patch of shade that I used to cool off in between taking shots of the ships locking through behind us. |
Monika: Once we were in and the gates were closed we slowly sank to the next level. But then we had to wait until the Jason had completely left the middle chamber and the water brought back up to our level. So the most ships they can move through the lock is two, one in the upper chamber and one in the lower chamber. Beyond the gates of the lowest chamber was a car bridge. It was swung in place whenever the lower gates on both lanes were closed and cars and buses could travel across. But while even one gate was opened, car traffic had to wait. We were told that this could sometimes take up to 45 minutes. There is nothing that seems to move fast around the locks, but then with most ships being at "Panamax" size, it really was a matter of inches. We actually could see the Jason swing from side to side a bit, and I was wondering whether she was hitting the side of the lock. When we finally steamed out of the last lock, we gave up our perches and went aft to get some pictures of the lock. It was full again with two ships in the upper and lower chambers of one lane and in the other lane was one ship in the middle chamber. |
Bob: Once we were finally through on the Atlantic side, we had dinner in the Horizon Court buffet until the ship had docked at Pier 6, our only possible stop at Colon. Pier 6 is a large, permanent, indoor marketplace with a ring of official, high-priced shops and a center of sales booths or tables. The shops use price tags and a fixed price strategy, but at the Mini Market in one corner we found Panama brand beer for $1 a can and at a vending machine in the center I found $ .75 cans of Seven-Up, so we both had something to drink. The central sales booths are operated by a variety of local vendors that seemed to include Panamanian folks and indigenous native folks on the day we were there. The native folks were decorated in loincloths, extensive tattoos and pretty much nothing else. They put on some song and dance routines for the visitors from Zuiderdam and Coral Princess. Their art and crafts looked authentic, however, and at one table I found a hand-woven kitten mask that turned out to be purrrfect for Monika. Once I get a Seven-Up or two in me, it seems, my sales resistance simply crumbles. I also spotted some hand painted ceramic egg cups (for eating soft-boiled eggs), and they were so pretty that I couldn't resist picking up a pair for back home. Then we were looking through some native paintings and Monika found a scene she liked, so we bought that also before we reboarded the ship. At 9 p.m. we attended the crew's talent show, preceded by a rousing game of balloon war in which balloons are batted to and fro by all the members of the audience who wish to participate. Fun. The show was also nice in that we saw some comedy skits and listened to three singers, two of which were surprisingly good and one of which had some off-notes. Our large, muscular, and highly-tattooed cruise director coming onstage as a ballerina dressed in a tutu was also quite a sight, in more ways than one. So in the end we had a rousing good time before heading off to bed. |
Monika: We were scheduled to make a short landfall in Colon/Christobal. The Zuiderdam had reached already her berth on Pier 6 as we docked on the other side. In the middle is a large hall. This is all of Colon that a cruiseship passenger will see, since the two hours we had in port was not enough to go anywhere else, and "anywhere else" seemed to be quite far away, since Pier 6 is surrounded by a container terminal as far as the eye could see. So after a quick supper in the Horizon Buffet, we looked at the sights of Pier 6. It was a big craft fair, with a few permanent stores. The first one that caught our eye was a MiniMart, since one of my reasons to go off ship is to find cheap local beer. Indeed for $1 I bought an exceptable brew called "Panama". Next we checked out the business center. They did have Internet, but it was $5 an hour. We did not think it was that important to contact kith and kin, so we wandered on looking at all the stalls. There was a lot of beautiful crafts. I was especially intrigued by masks made out of woven reed and other natural material. Bob finally found a cute little cat mask made out of black and white reed and $10 seemed to be a good price. We heard some music, and watched a native group play and dance, the men in loinclothes and the women barebreasted. Interesting. We did go into one of the more permanent structures and it felt crowded, and I was not sure, that some of the merchandise was not made in China. So we went back to the stalls and bargained for a beautiful native painting and a couple of ceramic eggcups with a delicate design glazed on it. Bob even found a vending machine selling Coke and Seven-Up for only 75 cents. So he two had something to drink, while I enjoyed my second beer. Once back on board, we went to the evening show which was a crew talent show. To warm us up, the cruise staff gave us balloons to blow up and soon there were balloons floating through the theater. It was hard to keep up. Bob and I were the only ones in our row, and balloons seem to accumulate, but we worked hard to chuck them back out into the theater. To all this they played funky songs like the chicken dance. So when the show actually started, we all were well exercised and in high spirits. The show was a lot of fun. Two of the singers from the crew where especially good. It ended with the cruise staff doing the old standby "If I were not at sea" ending with the cruise director, a not exactly slender person, dressed as a ballerina in a tutu. As Bob said, you have to be a very secure man to do that. We brought a few balloons back to the cabin and went to sleep. During the night I was awakened by someone knocking at the door, or so I thought. I finally figured out the following. For the cruise through the canal, the crew had brought the lifeboat right up to the window and during the night the wind had increased and there was motion in the ocean. So it seemed that something was loose and knocked against the hull ever now and then. With that figured out I went back sleep. |
