Monday, November 30th - Transiting the Panama Canal

The day has arrived, one of the prime reasons for this cruise was to "do the Panama Canal".  The day started by many of the passengers heading up to the forward lounge on Deck 12 to get a ring side seat for the Panama transit.

As we looked around the entrance to the Panama we could see many ships waiting their turn to go through.  The locks start processing ships at 6:00 AM and for 6 hours you can only go in one direction - east.  Starting at noon, the process reverses and it is only west bound traffic that is processed.

The Panama Canal actually runs in a Southeast/Northwest direction so we saw the sun rise in the Pacific Ocean and will see the sun set in the Atlantic Ocean, a little backwards to what you think when travelling from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans, but we can handle it - cool.

We will be passing through the Miraflores, Pedro Miguel and Gatun Locks during our transit.  A total distance in the canal is about 48 miles and will take most of the day.   There are currently two lanes with a third lane with its own set of locks scheduled to open in 2016.  We did cruise by the new lane and new locks.  The new locks and associated lanes and infrastructure will actually double the capability of the Panama Canal.

One of the New Locks

The canal pilots boarded around 6:00 AM  - just before sunrise and once the canal opens we pass under the Bridge of the America's.   We then passed by a part of the new lock system that will employ a very different method of moving water around to raise and lower the ships in the locks. The new method uses water saving basins to help raise and lower ships.

Just before we entered the first set of locks I noticed some military vessels at a pier just to the north.  The smaller one was shipped and painted in a very unique manner.  This boat looked very mean just sitting there.

Tight fit and one of the 4 guiding mules

We entered the Miraflores lock with only about 2 feet of space on each side of the ship. We are used to going through locks because we live in Sault Ste. Marie.  However, in the Sault ships use their own power to navigate in and out of the locks.  The Panama Canal uses "mules" located on each side of the ship - two for and two aft that the Canal Pilot communicates with to ensure the vessels stay in the centre of the lock so there is no damage to the walls, doors, etc.

















After exiting from the first set of locks we were going to pass under the Centennial Bridge.  The Centennial Bridge is the second major road crossing of the Panama Canal, the first being the Bridge of the Americas. (Small service bridges are built in the lock structures at Miraflores and Gatún Locks, but these bridges are only usable when the lock gates are closed and have limited capacity.)

The Centennial Bridge is located 15 km (9.3 mi) north of the Bridge of the Americas and crosses the Culebra Cut (Gaillard Cut) close to the Pedro Miguel locks. New freeway sections, connecting Arraign in the west to Cerro Patacon in the east via the bridge, significantly alleviate congestion on the Bridge of the Americas.

It took until after 4:00 PM until we cleared the last (Gatun) lock.  It was time for a little Happy Hour to celebrate the transit.  We met Carole and Marcel at the "Crush Bar" which were making excellent Gin and Tonics :). While we were sitting enjoying our drinks we had one of our bartenders stop and talk to us (Winston from Jamaica).  When asked we told him where we were from and he had a question for us..... Why are Canadians so nice?  He explained that of all the cruises he had been on Canadians had to be the nicest people he has met.  We were always happy and smiling!  Our first response was the excellent gin and tonics :).  That was a very hard thing to explain, we had a great discussion.

This bar had a huge number of different kinds of Vodka all on ice - literally!

After a couple or three, or four or ..... Gins we headed off for dinner (needed something to eat!).  The after dinner show tonight was a pianist and a soprano singer.  We passed on the show and decided to make an early night of it.